Third Incursion to the Gate to Hell
by Kevin T
Summary: Based on the StarCraft II mod Doomed Earth. Revised by NukedaWhales, original by Yoz. In the summer of 1994, Private Chuck Horner of the US Army prepares to journey from to Cordoba to Borborema to seal a Gate to Hell opened there 19 years ago by demons assisted by the British Empire. Two previous incursions failed, and most of the American continent is in ruins because of it.
1. Chapter 1

Third Incursion to the Gate to Hell

Based on the StarCraft II mod Doomed Earth. Revised by [UDEA]NukedaWhales, original by Yoz.

On the night of May 20th, 1994 Chuck Horner lay in his barracks bunk bed in Cordoba. He was a 19 year old private in the US army with blue eyes and brown hair with a hairline that was already receding a little despite his young age. He was reading a book on 20th century history called _The Race for Dominance_ which covered the time from 1945 until 1974, when the old book had been published. He was close to finished with it, and was getting close to the last few pages. He had gotten the book from the postal exchange a week before, and had read it whenever he could, and found it fascinating to learn what events had lead up to the massive incursion to the north he would soon be taking part in. He recalled the events in the book that he had already read about.

The wave of anarchy, religious fanaticism and revivals, and genocides that followed World War II had hit everywhere, but when it came to Balkanization, there were four areas hit particularly hard - Australia, the United States, Russia, and the Balkans themselves, which became a bubbling caldron of violence and anarchy following World War II, with no Balkan state growing larger than the American state of Vermont. The two decades following World War II saw the United States shrink to roughly a quarter of its prewar size, and by 1957 almost no city to the west of the Appalachian Mountains followed the laws set forth in Washington, D.C. Conversely, that same period had been very good to the nation of Mexico. Mexico had not lost a single sliver of its northern border, and in fact that border had grown to the south. The militaristic Mexican government had successfully and peacefully annexed Cuba, before taking every nation from Mexico to Panama either through peaceful annexation or force of arms. Only at the Columbian border had their expansion stopped, and Mexico and Columbia fortified their borders in an uneasy ceasefire. Though the Mexican army was brutal in its suppression of criminals and insurgents, it also provided a degree of security to their territory almost unmatched anywhere else in the world. In the same period, Canadian people flocked to the Northwest Territories along with refugee Americans to get away from the violence of the Second American Civil War, and Fort Good Hope, previously with a population in the hundreds, ballooned to a population in the tens of thousands, and the same could be said of Holman and Cambridge Bay. Defenses and military fortifications were set up there as well, and Canada readied its armies for battle around the same time as the United States. Also, in 1956 the American government switched the official measurement system from United States customary units to metric units, partially in response to citizens that wanted to "Spread democracy, not miles and pounds" and partially against the wishes of other citizens that found the metric units strange and annoying. Either way, total metrification was finished within the year, and people got used to the new units.

Such it was that when 1957 came around and the United States had the resources and will to retake its lost cities. The president of the United States asked the Mexican government for assistance, and Mexico gladly assented with the agreement that they would be allowed to take and keep the west coast of the former United States, in exchange for their assistance in the war between the United States and Canada. And indeed, that war saw none of the latent animosity of the Mexican-American War over a century before, and the Mexicans proved to be polite and agreeable allies. They easily took the areas immediately west and east of the Rocky Mountains, did not push past the halfway line of the continent, and destroyed contingents of Canadian troops in Alberta. Also, an asymmetrical but equal force of Mexican and Canadian soldiers met at Anchorage, Alaska. The Canadian army had more soldiers and trucks equipped with machine guns, but the Mexican army had more tanks. When they engaged, the Mexican force was annihilated, but not before destroying 80% of the Canadian force. The US had made a fast, mechanized tank force, which engaged a large force of Canadian foot soldiers east of Great Bear Lake in 1960, annihilating the whole force and bringing an end to mobile Canadian resistance. But when they reached Fort Good Hope, the commander of the tank force got impatient, and his impatience was mirrored by those in command. Canada was finished, but with the knowledge that any delay would mean more of the North American continent would be controlled by Mexico rather than the US, he sent his entire tank force north to attack Fort Good Hope from the north, which would provide easy access to destroying the static defenses. The plan was sound, were it not for a small force of destroyers due north of the Canadian capital. Their long-ranged deck guns combined with the powerful static defenses around the capital, creating a killing field. The tank force was almost entirely destroyed, and there was still a tank graveyard north of the city. The broken force retreated, and it took another year for a force large enough to finish the job to be formed. When companies of foot soldiers, many equipped with flamethrowers, advanced on those same fortifications, their losses to artillery were not great, and tanks helped them suppress and destroy machine gun bunkers. A new tank force engaged the destroyers, who stayed close to the shore to engage the tanks. All ships were sunk, and the survivors surrendered. Due to the delay, the US begrudgingly allowed Mexican troops to invade and capture Alaska. In the end of 1962, US forces took Holman and Cambridge Bay.

So it was that in the summer of 1963 all of North America was under the command of the two allies, and the United States took a much more skinny than stout profile on the map. It also had a population roughly 70% of the population of Mexico, and despite efforts to resettle the Midwest, that disparity only grew in the following years. Mexico took Frobisher Bay, largely simply because they had the means and will to fly a token force to take the little city, and the United States took Greenland and Iceland, causing only the smallest increase in their nation's population. It also set up a small military base in northeastern Siberia which it used to send spies to Europe, Asia, and Africa, but the civilian settlement in the area remained small for a very long time. Meanwhile, Mexico had already restarted its war with Columbia when it was sending forces to Canada, and when it finished its assistance in taking North America, its armies grew and then turned to the South, crashing through the Columbian defenses and then taking all of South America without notable resistance. Once all of South America was under Mexican control, Mexico built a long ring of artillery fortifications all along the east coast of South America, and then largely disbanded its armed forces.

With spies in Europe, Asia, and Africa, the United States was able to get incomplete but reliable information on the state of world affairs, and found that there were several nations growing powerful in those areas. A dictatorship had formed in South Africa but collapsed under internal pressure within a few years. Despite its collapse, when Britain invaded South Africa with a large tank force, it had neglected to bring any mobile anti-air systems. Britain did not know South Africa had attack helicopters in Angola, which were piloted by forces of a local warlord, which harassed the British tank force and forced Britain to withdraw and postpone expansion until 1972. Britain, Russia, and Australia had all switched to Monarchies, and their people believed that their leaders were blessed by God. Britain had become extremely expansionist, and in 1963 a map of the British Empire largely mirrored a map of the greatest extent of the Roman Empire, but with farther expansion east and north. Australia had reunified and expanded to include New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. Russia had not expanded greatly from its shrunken, fragmented state less than 1/4th the size it was in World War II, and Japanese expansion had been lackadaisical as well. So, the United States sent envoys to those countries to discuss alliances and peace, well aware that it didn't have anywhere near the manpower and resources to take on the world alone. Surprisingly, the Japanese Empire was receptive to the offer. Showing no malice for the atomic bombs dropped on the home islands in 1945, Japan readily accepted an offer of alliance, and immediately began sharing information with the United States. The United States built a heavy tank force in northeast Siberia, so that in November 1972 when King Maksimillian Balabanov of Russia died, creating an internal power struggle that lead to the collapse of the Russian government and a land grab of Russian territories, America had a force in the area to capitalize on the land grab. Tank forces took several Russian cities without any notable resistance, but were stopped south of Khantayskoye Lake, several hundred kilometers south of Norilsk, Russia.

At Khantayskoye Lake the tank force met a small force of a few hundred Australian infantry in the fall of 1974. However, when tanks came to destroy the infantry, the tanks were surprised by a phenomenon that could never be explained. Several men among the infantry, who called themselves "Prophets", but the word "wizards" may be more accurate, exhibited an unexplained power that could only be described as magical. These men were surrounded by a glow such that bullets bounced off them and didn't hurt them, and without any mechanical devices, and wearing nothing but robes, had the ability to shoot lightning bolts from their hands. So, with a flick of the wrist, they could stop a heavy tank dead in its tracks, and electrocute the tank crew within. They could not run faster than the average man, though they were more mobile as they didn't need to carry heavy equipment, so in retrospect, the logical reaction to such magic men would have been to turn the tank force around and flee until they could be better understood and a countermeasure could be devised against them. At the very least, retrofitting the tanks with protection from electricity would have been a simple stopgap measure. However, again the tank commanders got impatient, and again their impatience was mirrored by their superiors, who knew that, with history repeating itself, any delay in the land grab would mean fewer cities and population under United States control.

This is where he had picked up tonight and was reading. While still reading about it, he heard Sergeant Nathan Der Wales shout "lights out!" and turn out the lights. However, with so few pages left, he decided to risk a reprimand, and took out a small flashlight and finished the book, reading under his sheets.

The book continued, and described how the tank commander committed the entire tank force to destroy this force of Prophets. Indeed, a few were killed, as the Prophets were not so bulletproof that a tank round wouldn't kill them. But it was a battle that made no economic sense, as wizards took out tanks that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce with flicks of their wrists. Further, the wizards were agile, and could hide behind trees and below hills, and sneak up on the tanks to hit them from the back, such that within two days' time, the entire tank force was disabled, surviving crews surrendered, and there were no American forces less than a hundred kilometers from the area. Disaster compounded itself as the force of Prophets moved into China and Mongolia, and Japanese troops were equally unprepared to stop the assault. America's Japanese allies, so recently united after decades of minimal contact and a brutal war, quickly saw their land holdings disappear as well.

This is where the book stopped. It ended in 1974, with the line "And so, the future looks bleak for the United States of America, and, as with much of the 19th century, the last quarter of the 20th century will see America isolated and paranoid that larger, more powerful, and more populous nations will invade and impinge on its national sovereignty."

Chuck Horner took a moment to consider the mystery of Khantayskoye Lake, and how people seemingly carrying no tools could generate huge bursts of electricity. He then set the book down and turned off his flashlight, resolving to throw out the book in the morning. He had to walk thousands of kilometers, and every kilogram of weight would count against him in the long journey.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, after wake up and breakfast, he joined the rest of his platoon in the armory to prepare equipment for the march. With him was Johnathan Jones, buddy of his that he met in basic training. He had blond hair and blue eyes, was a few months younger than Chuck, an a few centimeters shorter. Chuck had learned Jonathan was from Chicago, which had become part of the US again in 1958. The armory was stocked with cutting edge armor and weaponry. He inspected the M27, which was an assault rifle conceptually based off the M16 but with a short-stroke gas system, adjustable stock, and more modular components than its predecessor. Each magazine contained 30 rounds of 7.62x51 mm armor piercing bullets with a tungsten carbide tip. But the real improvement of the new assault rifle was the optics. The gun had hybrid sights which could be brought up and flipped down from the barrel with a simple switch. The first, smaller component was a 2X optical sight. In front of that was an 8X sight, and when both were combined it created 16X zoom. It also had a small laser rangefinder that displayed exactly how many meters to a target, allowing him to accurately notch in ranges in the gun. In addition, a night vision attachment could be affixed in front of both of the sites, but that required two screws, and was bulky, so it couldn't be moved to the side of the gun and had to be manually attached and removed.

The body armor was also improved from the previous generation, and designed much less to prevent penetration from bullets than to provide protection from cuts and cushioning from concussions. It had a stiff but flexible outer shell that covered the chest, arms, legs, and groin, and inner padding. It came with breathable gloves to that provided scratch resistance, and boots designed both for comfort in long walks and to minimize the risk of ankle sprains as much as possible. It also came with a lightweight helmet with plenty of room for the clear plastic glasses that came with it, and room for a full cloth facemask, such that when worn, the only part of a soldier's skin exposed would be the top of the nose.

This was the general equipment for the force. Because the M27 was modular, all the new small arms shared components. Some soldiers were carrying the gun modified to be designated marksman rifle that shot 12.7×99mm rounds and had a 10 round magazine, and others were carrying the gun modified to be a squad automatic weapon that could accept box magazines. Also, a few man-portable miniguns were being taken along, but probably not more than one per platoon, as they were heavy affairs that took two people to set up, and would require having one soldier just to carry the ammunition. The miniguns fired 7.62x51 mm rounds just like the assault rifles, and support infantry carried M27 carbines. Since the IBIS walker machine guns fired 12.7×99mm rounds, and pistols were ineffective against demons, that meant that really, ammunition-wise, the whole army only needed to carry those two sizes of ammunition. He finished suiting up, and loaded the required 10 magazines and stuffed them into his vest, and packed the sundry items he was required to pack into his backpack. He also had a standard issue knife, though it was more as a tool than as a last-ditch weapon, and he didn't carry a pistol, as a handgun would be little use against the kind of enemy he would soon have to fight. After he finished packing up, he took out a map and a metric ruler. Jonathan saw him.

"How far do we have to go?" asked Jonathan.

"Well, it's about 5000 kilometers from Cordoba to Borborema as the crow flies. Also, were this peacetime, we could be there three days by car. But, this isn't a mobile force, all told, and we aren't mobile infantry. Besides, the United States Army is in no rush to get to Borborema. The Gate to Hell has been there for 19 years, and it isn't going anywhere soon."

"So how far do WE have to go?"

"Give me a few minutes," said Chuck, scratching his head. He took out a notepad and pen and added the distances up.

"Let's see..." said Chuck. "The plan is to go from Cordoba to Curitiba, then up past Aracatuba to Rio Verde, then from Barreiras to Bananeiras and down to Borborema. All told, that's just under 6,000 kilometers."

Jonathan whistled. "It's like the Oregon Trail."

"Longer," said Chuck, taking out another map of the United States and measuring. "From Independence, Missouri to Salem, Oregon is 3000 kilometers. Our trip will be like walking the Oregon Trail and then walking back again. But there is some good news."

"What's that?" asked Jonathan.

"It's 2,200 kilometers to Curitiba. Some of that we will have to walk, but most of that trip we can ride trucks, trains, or carts. Once we're at Curitiba we'll have to walk the entire way, but from Curitiba it's 3,800 kilometers to Borborema."

"Great, it's like a walk to the store," said Jonathan sarcastically.

"It's not great news, sure," said Chuck. "But it's a good bit better than actually having to walk the whole way."

"Well, then I'd better pack something to do," said Jonathan, making sure to pack his harmonica with the rest of his things.

"It had better be something else then just a harmonica," said Chuck. "Even your harmonica playing gets annoying after a while."

Jonathan laughed, and then gave a high, then three low notes on the harmonica.

"You could take along a huge guitar and accompany me as minstrel," he joked.

"No, with all this..." Chuck patted his backpack. "...I don't think I'd want to carry an extra two or three kilograms. Maybe I could accompany you on the cowbell."

Jonathan laughed.

"But seriously," said Chuck. "I got another history book I'll probably read on the way to Curitiba."

"You and your history books," said Jonathan.

"Well, I would be in college studying history right now, if I hadn't been drafted."

Chuck Horner sobered at the thought, and Jonathan noticed.

"I'd probably be in college too, if not for the draft," Jonathan said. "I'm not sure what I'd be studying. Probably music or religious studies or something." He was silent for a moment. "But hey, look on the bright side. At least you'll get to see a lot of the world. And it won't be the world flying by at 40 kilometers an hour. It'll be the world going by at 40 kilometers a day, so you can really, **really** get a good look at what South American farmland looks like."

"Oh sure, I'm sure I'll become the best historian in the world for my accurate descriptions of farmland."

"You know it!" joked Jonathan. "Now get your maps all packed up or we'll be late for inspection."


	3. Chapter 3

At inspection Jonathan met the other members of his squad that he knew by name. There was Sergeant Nathan Der Wales, a relatively young sergeant about five years older than Jonathan, about a centimeter or two taller, and with black hair and white, slightly tan skin. There was also Private Kade, who was the support gunner of the squad. Hailing from America with at least some Latino blood, he was a tall man with black hair and green eyes. He had a first name, but didn't tell it to anyone and everyone just knew him as Kade. He was also a man of few words, and Chuck wasn't friends with him, but found him generally pleasant. Then there was Private Isaac Knowles. He was almost white as a sheet, had blond hair, and when Chuck initially met him he thought he would be good friends with him. But he later found Isaac to be immature and annoying, and they were brothers in arms, but not currently friends, though they did talk occasionally.

After inspection, Chuck Horner walked along the road with his comrades in the United States Army. He passed by the tall Tesla coils still protecting northern Cordoba, which had been so instrumental in protecting the city in 1979. Far to the east was an old burnt out shell of a Mexican artillery position, which was intended to protect the South American coast, but proved to be sadly ineffective. And thus began the first, safest leg of the journey to Borborema. As expected, long stretches of the journey had to be marches, but for about 600 kilometers he was able to take a train, and road in cars and carts for other parts of the trip. He passed by a landscape in recovery. The land north of Cordoba had seen its share of demon attacks, but ever since Tesla towers had been built north of Curitiba, and later in 1984 to the north of Asuncion and Salta, the land south of that line had enjoyed a decade of relative peace, interrupted by panics that demons would break through the defenses. Chuck saw a mix of Latino and White people populating this land, many of them farmers. Also, there were signs of the demon attacks over a decade before, but with people safe to fix damage, any signs he saw were just when it was something damaged that wasn't practical to repair or demolish.

During this leg of the journey, he had plenty of time when he was in a tent or hotel, or when he didn't have to walk, to read a new book he had purchased for the journey. It was titled _Creation of the Humanoids_ and covered history from 1970 to 1980. Chuck was alive for the events of the book, and had read about many of the events it described before, but it was interesting to read them all together and learn things he either never knew or had learned once but forgotten.

In 1970 pictures taken by a spy in Libya were leaked to the American public, which lead to a panic that the US Army had tried to prevent by making sure the pictures were not leaked. In a clear, high-quality picture, taken from a telephoto lens, two British soldiers stood at ease next to a monster. The monster was undeniably humanoid, but the picture led to a slew of questions. It was about three times the size of a man, with naked reddish-gray skin and patches armored like an armadillo. It was surrounded with a glow, and had four long, white, sinister-looking tentacles coming from its back, and had large hands with short claws. Editorials came into newspapers faster than they could be printed about what could have led to the creation of these humanoids. Theories ranged the full spectrum, from mutated humans, to a monstrous, detailed costume, to stranger possibilities such as the creature being an extraterrestrial, or from another dimension, or a demon from Hell itself. Strangest of all was the detail of the British soldiers close to the humanoid, unhurried, relaxed, and not looking threatened by the creature. So, the most heartening possibility was that it was some sort of hoax - something on a movie set, or a bad joke. Or perhaps the picture itself was a fake; something painted to be completely photorealistic, and was simply the product of a tortured brain. Either way, inquiries to the British government all fell silent, and the American public at large was left to wonder what that strange creature could be.

In 1975 they found out. The British Empire and the United States had un-allied in the chaotic decade after World War II, and never re-allied. After World War II it had totally conquered France, destroying the French language and doing all it could to destroy pre-war French culture. It then captured large swaths of territory in the wake of the collapse of Russia, and by 1968 had an empire larger than the Mexican empire, and far dwarfing the United States. All of Africa was under its control, as was the Middle East and most of the former Kingdom of Russia. So, when large numbers of transport ships were spotted off the coast of Natal, it was obvious that the British Empire had invasion on its mind. Coastal guns blew up a small number of the ships, but the number of ships far exceeded the number of guns, and the great majority made landfall in Brazil unharmed or with minor damage. That was the start of horror, and April 17th, 1975 became a day that would live in infamy far more than the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. Chuck remembered reading about that fateful day, and seeing the horrible pictures when he was older, though he was only two months old at the time.

Out of the transports did not come British soldiers, or even any large invasion force. Most of the barges were empty decoys. Instead, the transport barges opened to reveal five of the monstrosities. Even at close range, with the great Mexican costal guns scoring direct hits on the strange beings, the shells seemed to explode a short distance from them rather than directly hitting the beings, and the beings were unharmed. The being then lifted their arms, which carried no tools or items, and seemingly from nothing but thin air conjured black swirling balls, which they launched at the fortifications. The strange spheres exploded like great cannonballs, blasting the fortifications apart. Soldiers ran for their lives, fleeing the unstoppable humanoids.

On April 18th, panic gripped Brazil. There were no regular army units in the area, and though small militia units tested their guns against the beasts, their guns were completely ineffective, causing only small sparks against their evil glow. A few days later a small force of light tanks engaged the creatures, but found the tank guns as ineffective as costal guns and small arms. So, the Mexican armed forces tried larger bombs, delivered from the air. Bombers from the Mexican Air Force arrived and began bombing runs against the creatures, but were entirely ineffective. Even a direct hit from one of their bombs did not kill the beasts, and the pilots learned with horror that the balls of energy that the creatures shot behaved like magic missiles, tracking their targets even at 10,000 meters above the ground. The balls of energy hit the bombers, obliterating them. They were not given permission to break off though, and the entire small bomber fleet was destroyed. A hundred kilometer evacuation radius was ordered, and people all around fled as fast as they could. Fear gripped the country under the assumption that these creatures themselves were the tools of their destruction, a valid fear at the time, but incorrect in retrospect. Instead, the creatures headed to Borborema, and entered a mine in the area. Things were quiet for the next week. Seismometers detected disturbances in the area, but no one that entered the mine came out alive, so about a week passed in nervous terror.

Then, new creatures began emerging from the mine. A few were like the unstoppable demons that had landed on the shore, which people referred to as Greater Demons to differentiate them from the other humanoids. However, there was another type of creature, smaller and more numerous, about twice the size of a human, similar to the first creature, but not glowing. Also, on its hands were long, sharp claws. Those creatures were called Demons proper by people, though somewhat confusingly, people also began referring to any of the new creatures as demons in general. Finally, huge numbers of what could best be described as Imps also poured from the mine. These were about 3/5ths the size of an average man, and looked like the children's Halloween costume of a devil. They were dingy red, also armored like an armadillo, with pointy noses, pointy ears, horns like a goat, four-toed feet, and sharp claws on their five-fingered hands. Local militia also tested their guns on these new creatures, and hearteningly, found that the Imps were not bulletproof from rifle rounds, though they could survive a pistol round or glancing blow from a rifle round easily. The larger creatures were also not bulletproof, but very bullet resistant, requiring careful, direct placement of high-speed bullets to injure, and sustained fire of such shots to completely kill. However, the numbers of such creatures made local resistance futile, even more so as they were supported by more of the unstoppable glowing monstrosities.

With the short wait time before demons came from the ground, a mass evacuation had occurred, and hundreds of kilometers around the area were nothing but ghost towns when the demons poured out. Further, drafts had been initiated for the Mexican Army, but the short time meant that the army units in the area amounted to little more than people equipped with semi-automatic rifles and pistols, a small force of heavy tanks in Brazil, and only a few aircraft. Not that it would matter against the unstoppable Greater Demons, but a larger army would have delayed the onslaught at least. As it was, the small tank force was ineffective and the tanks killed some Imps and Demons, but was swarmed and annihilated, and a nearby tank factory was destroyed. Afterwards, demons spread to the surrounding areas as fast as their legs could carry them, and it was at the city of Salvador that the new demons met the first large collection of humans - people who had evacuated to that city for safety, which now found even that city too close to Borborema to keep them safe. Everyone feared the worst when the demons arrived, and mass prayers began. And indeed, the demons entered the city and killed everyone holding a weapon or praying. They also ate some people, but the demons seemed to be easily satiated, and each could only eat one small child a day or a piece of an adult, and after satiated, they would simply kill a person and either leave the body to rot or store it somewhere to eat later. However, fear turned to confusion when it was found there were people the demons would leave alone. When demons encountered an unarmed person, who was not praying and made no move of resistance, they would leave that person alone. Deception was futile. The demons either couldn't communicate with humans or made no effort to do so, but by all accounts they were at least empathetic, in the sense that they could tell if a person was submitting in true despair, or was submitting just to get into a better position to kill demons later. The latter they would kill instantly, with no heed taken to armament or posture. The Greater Demons made this feeling of helplessness come easy, as they were huge and invincible. The Imps, however, had the opposite effect on people who saw them. Their huge numbers filled people with despair, but in a one on one fight, a strong man could kill an Imp, so long as he had some sort of weapon and knew how to fight. Chuck never heard of any story of a Brazilian Davy Crocket who could kill an Imp with his bare hands, but did read stories of individual people getting into one-on-one combat with Imps, sometimes carrying nothing but a rolling pin, a baseball bat, or even in one case a frying pan and emerging hurt but victorious. Such people that had the guts to fight the demons were exactly the sort of people that ended up dead, as the demons would never show them mercy if they closed in on them.

So, as demons began spreading through Brazil, leaving widespread disruption but not total destruction, entreaties first went to the Mexican government in Mexico City, which had the authority to send more regular army units to the area to slow the spread and give civilians more time to flee. Mexico did for its part at least make some effort to contain the beasts. It tried setting up more artillery positions farther from the Gate to Hell, but those were easily overrun. So, without a large army in South America to meet the supernatural threat, and with the most powerful conventional bombs in the Mexican arsenal ineffective at actually stopping the waves of demons flooding from the Gate to Hell, instead the dictator of Mexico, Samual Acuna, sent out a mass message to the mayors of South American towns and cities, which included a line that became infamous for years later - "Su sentimiento de impotencia es su mejor amigo." It meant "Your feeling of helplessness is your best friend." He said in the message that he regretted to inform them that, while he was keeping the coastal guns manned and ready, that regular army troops could not be sent to stem the tide of the unstoppable beasts, and that fortifications were being set up near Panama. He further implored those that could to flee as quickly as possible, and those that could not to fully and sincerely submit to the demons and throw themselves on their mercy, giving no outside show of piety, which seemed to only anger the beasts.

The British were even more callous, and entreaties to them resulted in only silence. Individual citizens of the British Empire expressed displeasure and disgust at the carnage taking place in South America, and fear that it would spread beyond that continent, but there was no official messages whatsoever to the people of Brazil, to the Mexican government, or to the United States government about the situation in South America. Letters were sent back unopened, radio transmissions unanswered, and conversations started on other topics in the rare cases when there was high-level interaction between the two groups of peoples were shut down if talks turned to that subject. The people of Brazil wanted to surrender to the British. They wanted to know that if they were to be dominated, it would at least be by a people that wouldn't eat them. But there was no chance of surrender to the British. The demons were like hives of bees catapulted into an enemy camp, and no surrender to the enemy would stop the bees from stinging, nor in this case was the enemy even willing to hear talk of surrender.

The United States, for its part, at least tried to send some help down to South America, but the effect was disastrous to the effect of being almost sadly comical. In 1976 a group of transport helicopters with builders and some army troops flew down to Brasilia to try to set up a base and fortifications there. The demons arrived too fast for any to be set up, so they moved further south, to Campo Grande, where the speed of the advance again surprised them, and they had to move down again. The Army assumed that against the vincible demons, the coastal guns would at least slow down the demons, as they could swivel 360 degrees, and neither Imps nor Demons were invulnerable like the Greater Demons were. However, their numbers were too great and they overwhelmed the fortifications one after the other, not falling quite like dominos, but more like a loaf of bread with slices being cut off. So, the transport helicopters skipped the next fallback city, Asuncion, and instead fell back all the way to Buenos Aires to give the soldiers and builders time to actually fortify the area some before the demons arrived. That did work, but barely. Two large groups of demons had moved down the coast destroying the costal guns, and by the time they reached Cordoba, one cluster had been entirely killed, and the other down to just a few hundred demons, which were killed by soldiers, and bought enough time to make a base south of Cordoba. Soon after, two things happened. First, the United States instituted a draft. At the time it was hoped it could be a temporary measure, but that was in late 1976, and 18 years later it was still in effect. Second, the Mexican government had constructed some missiles in Alaska, a few armed with fission nuclear missiles, and it sent three against the Gate to Hell. When they hit, they scorched the area around the mine entrance, and killed any demons in the area, they were otherwise completely ineffective. The entrance could be easily sealed with missiles, but it only delayed the creatures for a few days or weeks until it could be dug out again.

In 1979 forces near Cordoba had built up enough that Army planners decided to mount an offensive against the Gate to Hell. Twenty five thousand foot soldiers gathered, armed largely with M16s and wearing light flak jackets, and were joined by four of the first generation IBIS walkers. They marched along the coast, and met with initial success, and even retook Sao Paulo from the demons. However, it was at Penápolis that they met their doom. The force of soldiers was met by wave after wave of Imps and Demons, and a handful of Greater Demons. Hearteningly, when the IBIS walkers concentrated their fire on one of the greater demons, after pounding it heavily with long-range artillery, the Greater Demon was finally killed. That marked the first time one of the Greater Demons was killed, and meaning that such humanoids were tough, but not invincible. However, their void blasts were very effective against the large groups of infantry, and damaged even the large IBIS walkers without much trouble, such that after a few days of fighting all 25,000 soldiers were dead, and soon every IBIS walker was destroyed as well. Companies of troops were rushed to the front line as fast as they could to stop a total rollback of all that had been liberated from the demons, but they came a few thousand at a time. While they were effective at slowing down the onslaught and eventually killed every demon marching towards Cordoba, there was one Greater Demon that marched on the city like an unstoppable juggernaut, and seemed to shrug off the small arms fire directed at it.

So, just north of Cordoba, a new experimental defense was set up. Large Tesla coils, about a hundred meters tall and powered with underground cables from large generators were set up, which had beams affixed to their tops which could direct the otherwise uncontrollable electrical discharges onto an area by creating a conduit through the air for the circuit to ground and complete. They later were found to be much more effective than guns and shells, and could instantly kill Imps, and electrocute Demons with prolonged, powerful bursts. However, at the time they had never been tried and when the first Greater Demon arrived at the Tesla coil cluster, fear spread all around South America that even the new towers would be ineffective. Every soldier that could be armed was brought up to defend the towers and every effort was made to brace them against concussions, and as soon as the Greater Demon came within range, the air crackled with electricity. It was a long battle, taking over an hour, with many towers hitting the glowing demon over and over again. The demon threw ball after ball of dark energy, and its void blasts damaged several towers, but brave engineers raced from tower to tower, some of them being killed by those blasts, to repair damage caused by them. Forty minutes in, observers with binoculars could see the demon was no longer glowing with the bright luster it had when it had first come into view. Fifty minutes in, the demon collapsed to the ground. Shocks continued for several minutes to make sure the beast was dead, and then the towers stopped. Several were smoking or on fire from the prolonged current, and many were damaged in places by void blasts or melted from the prolonged current flowing through them. But the Greater Demon was dead. As soon as possible, a single soldier went to the body and decapitated the creature with a knife to ensure that it was well and truly dead, and reddish black blood flowed from its body. Then several others came to collect the smoking, charred body and take it back to base for dissection. Chuck was only four years old at the time, but he remembered reading with interest about that dissection when he was older, which removed all notions that the creature was some kind of mutant human. It had organs analogous to humans, but they were in different places and different shapes than human organs. More to the point, that battle between beast and the Tesla coils had proven that some kind of protection from the Greater Demons was possible, and gave hope to people that they might live their lives in relative safety. Here the second book ended.


	4. Chapter 4

After weeks of traveling, Chuck and his squad finally reached Curitiba on June 10th, 1994. The city was bustling with activity, with thousands of soldiers and support staff all moving from one place to another, and work being finalized to begin moving out from the city. The last leg of the journey from Cordoba to Curitiba happened to be on foot, and as Chuck slowly approached the city, he could see the huge IBIS walkers in the distance to the north of the city, as well as clusters of the large Tesla coils he had finished reading about only days before.

Once he got to the city, he had a few days of rest before the force was set to move out. His platoon was one of the last to arrive, so he knew he wouldn't have to wait long. Two days after arriving, he saw a small precession enter the city on horseback and carts, without any motorized vehicles among them, but escorted by police cars from the city. A few hours after arriving, the precession left the city. He learned about the gist of the encounter second-hand. It turned out that the man was the mayor of Sao Paulo, which was the first major city too far from the protective Tesla towers, and the mayor had rode to Curitiba to beseech the general in charge of the United States Army not to try to go to the city for rest and resupply. Sao Paulo was a city independent of any nation that was only left alone due to the mass surrender of its people to the demons. The general had agreed, and assured the mayor the army had no plans of going to the city. Indeed, the army was purposely over-prepared. Behind the soldiers and IBIS walkers were thousands of supporters, with as many transport trucks and cars as could be mustered, and horses and even wheelbarrows where those fell short, carrying all the sundries an army needed - fuel, food, water, and most importantly, huge stores of ammunition, probably twice as much as needed. If there was one thing the planners didn't want, it was the incursion being doomed by logistics, and they had been sure to over-prepare as much as possible, so there was no need to loot existing cities on the way or depend on a long, vulnerable supply chain. Shelter would be welcomed, but plenty of tents were available at the very least. Besides, the army was taking a more northward course anyway, so Sao Paulo wasn't on the itinerary.

The fact that Sao Paulo still existed as a viable city reminded Chuck Horner of a surprise in those dark days after demons began pouring from Borborema - that demons understood the concept of mercy, and Sao Paulo, like Salvador, still existed as viable cities in one form or another. At Curitiba, he gave away _Creation of the Humanoids_ and picked up a new book called _Deicide_, which was about the coming of Diablo in 1977 until his death at Lagdo in 1991, and the world events that happened in that period and shortly after. He knew he wouldn't have any time on the march to read the new book, but that he would have plenty of time before going to sleep on the long trip to read it. It was a large book, and would mean extra weight, but it was weight he was more than willing to bear.

Four days after Chuck arrived at Curitiba the entire force moved out. Now that his platoon had joined the field army, Chuck was stuck by the scale of the undertaking. Despite the massive losses of life that America had endured for the last 20 years, the United States Army was still capable of fielding a field army of 43,000 foot soldiers, about 50,000 support troops, and seven IBIS walkers, all third generation, though a few were upgraded from second generation IBIS walkers rather than being newly built. The IBIS walkers marched behind the troops, but one got close enough that Chuck could get a good look at it. Chuck was about 1.66 meters tall himself, and the third generation IBIS walker was around 6 times his size, so he guessed it was about 10 meters tall. First generation IBIS walkers were around 30 meters tall, and had enough room for five people, but their slender figure made them more vulnerable to concussions, and the second generation IBIS walkers only needed room for a computer in place of five crew members, so second and third generation IBIS walkers were more stout and bulky than the first generation ones. Chuck wasn't intimately familiar with how the third generation walkers differed from the second generation ones, but was familiar with a few of their general improvements. The third generation IBIS walkers had the newest integrated circuits inside them, had even thicker armor and more powerful engines, and had cutting-edge new weaponry. The two machine guns built into the center of the machine fired normal 12.7×99mm rounds, but as far as he had heard, the new IBIS walkers didn't even use chemical propellant for the main guns, which fired with electrically-charged railguns instead. Further, he heard that the new shells could course-correct in flight to hit a target precisely. Also, they were the only vehicle large enough and powerful enough to carry the new deflector shield generators that had been invented only a few years before. He marveled at the machines, even as he reminded himself that he had no clue who would win in a one-on-one fight between a new IBIS walker and a Greater Demon. He was interrupted in his musing for the time by Jonathan Jones, who had taken to playing his harmonica. Chuck walked next to him and sung along as Jonathan played the tune to the song "Why We Fight", which was one of Jonathan's favorite songs.


	5. Chapter 5

First contact with the demons was uneventful. West of Ponta Grossa, Chuck Horner was awakened on the night of June 13th, 1994 by a general alarm and the boom of guns from the IBIS walkers. He went with the rest of his platoon to man the perimeter, but the alarm lasted five minutes, and the big guns ceased. General vigil ceased an hour later as there was no further activity, and though increased guards were posted, Chuck Horner and most of the rest of his platoon was allowed to go back to sleep. In the morning, when they began marching again, Chuck found the bodies Imps several kilometers from last night's camp. It turned out to be just a small force of Imps, and long range fire from the IBIS walkers had entirely destroyed the force. The army unit could expect more resistance on the way, but this small group couldn't quite be termed as "scouts". The demons existed in semi-independent groups, and while they had shown signs of being able to communicate with each other psionically, they didn't show signs of large-scale strategic coordination, and operated more like stone-aged warbands than an opposing modern army. Close groups would join attacks, and the Greater Demons showed some ability to command the other units around them to coordinate tactically, but even such tactics were crude. Retreat was rare, as was encirclement unless the situation made it easy, and the demons in general tended to run at whatever target they saw and attack at close range, like stone-age cavemen. More to the point, just because one group of demons spotted the large incursion force didn't mean that that every single denizen of Hell on the American continent would coordinate to attack the army group, and while they could expect more resistance on the way, it would be more because of the increased numbers of demons concentrated between them and Borborema than because of any high-level plan.

Walking through the cluster of dead Imps, Chuck Horner chatted with Jonathan Jones.

"It's good to see that the new IBIS walkers are effective," commented Jonathan.

Chuck nodded.

"I bet that now that demons walk the earth, there's not a single person left in the world that's atheist" continued Jonathan. He said it as if he was saying a sure thing, like that the sky was blue or one plus one equaled two.

"Actually, I'd still consider myself an atheist," said Chuck.

Jonathan stopped walking and starred at Chuck, confused. "Really? Why?"

Chuck stopped and thought. After a moment, he spoke.

"Well, to be clear, I do believe in magic now. The Prophets at Khantayskoye Lake and the Greater Demons are pretty solid evidence that magic is real, in one way or another. But I don't believe in God, for two reasons. First, the whole Christian idea seems to be the belief not only that for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. It also seems to be the belief that prayer actually changes things. But it really doesn't. No one won the lottery by praying really hard. No one regrew a limb by praying really hard. And if you pray in front of a demon it will just kill you for sure. So, prayer really isn't helping anything."

Jonathan kicked thoughtfully at an Imp arm at the ground that had been blown away from the IBIS walker artillery fire. "Just because God doesn't answer every single prayer doesn't mean he doesn't exist. Every Christian knows that if you pray for a million dollars or a big plate of chicken or something, it's not going to magically appear in front of you. And if someone wrongs you, praying that they get justice doesn't necessarily mean they'll get justice in this life. That never stopped anyone from believing in God that I know of, and it doesn't mean God doesn't exist."

"Which gets to my second point," continued Chuck. "If God does exist, the fact that evil also exists is a problem. It means that either he's impotent, meaning he can't stop evil and isn't a supreme being, or he stands by and lets evil exist and does nothing, meaning he's at best someone useless to worship, or at worst as evil as Diablo and should be damned to Hell himself. The simplest conclusion to draw from that is that God doesn't exist at all, and good and evil don't come from some ultimate good or evil being."

Jonathan looked hard at Chuck. "An atheist is a person that denies or disbelieves in the existence of a supreme being. Even if you don't believe in God, you must at least believe in Diablo, since he has walked the Earth. Doesn't that mean you believe in a supreme being?"

Chuck responded quickly. "Diablo isn't a supreme being. The British killed him eventually, and I'm sure one day Pharol the Black will be killed as well. There's a difference between beings that are super-powerful and those that are all-powerful. An IBIS walker would seem god-like and powerful to anyone from the Middle Ages, you know."

Jonathan sighed, annoyed. He took his little gold cross out from his vest. It clinked next to his dog tags.

"I don't mind a friendly metaphysical discussion," said Jonathan. "Further, I'll grant you that Diablo didn't turn out to be invincible. But when a person admits Diablo himself has walked the Earth, a being of supreme evil, and doesn't then also believe there is somewhere out there a being of supreme good, it seems naive or blind to me. One day, when I'm dead, my soul will go to heaven, and I'll finally be able to meet that being of supreme good."

Chuck starred at the little gold cross. "You'd better put that away. You'll never be able to surrender to a demon if they see you wearing that."

Jonathan had been patiently listening to Chuck as he talked about God and Diablo, but at the word "surrender" he gasped and recoiled.

"Surrender? Are you insane? When we die, we will die with our arms unbound!" sputtered Jonathan, quoting from the song "Why We Fight".

Chuck backpedaled. "Oh, I was joking. Of course, I'd never surrender myself."

Jonathan looked at Chuck, incredulous. He put the dog tags and cross back in his vest. "Well, it's nothing to joke about. We're in the U.S. Army because we will fight, not surrender. I've never been to a city that has people who surrendered to demons myself, but when we come to one, you try telling whoever still lives there that they're better off because they surrendered."

"Oh, I'd never surrender," said Chuck, but as both of them resumed walking, he wasn't so sure and his mind turned to thoughts of surrender and Diablo, and to the first few chapters of _Deicide._


	6. Chapter 6

In 1977 Diablo arrived on the Earth. After two years of widespread destruction, and a few weeks without any new demons pouring out of the Gate to Hell, a new creature emerged from the Earth. Rumors and accounts swirled for weeks afterwards, but when a picture of the beast was eventually taken and the taker able to survive long enough to get the picture to the public, there was no mistaking that the new creature must be none other than Diablo himself.

However, this wasn't the Satan of Dante's Inferno, or the cartoonish Devil that the Imps resembled. Diablo was a massive humanoid of fire, easily 10 stories tall, with four great horns on his head and a row of spikes protruding from his spine. He also had a short, pointed tail, and large hands and feet with great claws growing from each. The Demons and Greater Demons didn't seem to mind being near him, but his very presence was hostile to all other life. For kilometers around wherever he stepped, everything that could burn burned, and for kilometers more, it was uncomfortably hot. Diablo's mere presence affected the weather, and weather maps showed visible spikes in temperature around wherever Diablo happened to be standing. In fact, Diablo himself could be best characterized as a force of nature. Chuck thought of the adjectives newspapers used to describe him: evil, tall, aloof, merciless, burning, cruel. But above all, they mentioned that he was capricious. To the best of anyone's observation, there was little rhyme or reason in what Diablo did or where in particular he went, and he seemed to revel in the beauty of annihilation. He passed by cities of people that had already surrendered to demons, though as he passed close such cities would still be under extreme risk of fire just as a side effect of his passing. This risk even extended to other denizens of hell. Greater Demons were not harmed by the close proximity to the walking inferno, and Demons were heat-resistant, but Imps would burn almost as easily as humans if they got too close to their flaming master. When he encountered cities that hadn't surrendered, he threw great fireballs at the cities, and it was only if the people in the city surrendered to the lesser demons that he would cease the destruction. However, when he reached Panama he stopped being escorted by demons and began his path of solo destruction, which brokered no chance of surrender or mercy. His path of destruction was relatively slow and meandering, such that it was not until 1979 that he reached Mexico City and destroyed it utterly. People by and large had a chance to flee, and when Diablo destroyed cities they were often entirely abandoned, but his destruction of industry and agriculture meant that even if people weren't killed by Diablo's great fireballs, they faced a future as homeless unemployed refugees at risk of starvation.

In the face of the demonic hordes roaming most of South America, aside from creating a safe haven in the southern tip, the United States was trying its best to take action to protect its own cities and citizens. First, very soon after Diablo first appeared on the Earth, NASA finished preparations to create a permanent colony on the moon. That was more of insurance against the worst, as if Diablo was truly an unstoppable, ultimate evil, the hope was that if worse came to worse, a colony on the moon would be safe from the creatures that roamed the doomed earth. Second, after seeing how ineffective current artillery and heavy tanks were against the Greater Demons in South America that vexed all efforts to contain the onslaught, military researches rushed through with plans to create an IBIS walker. The first ones were taller and more slender than later versions, and less heavily armored. They were about 30 meters tall, piloted by a five man crew, and had two great cannons for hands. They were powered by a nuclear reactor fed by overloaded plutonium, and their humanoid shape made it practical to make them larger than even the largest tanks. However, when the first one was created and sent down to South America for a trial by fire in 1976, the result was disappointing. It engaged a Greater Demon near Manaus, but the IBIS walker was destroyed. A second one was created and stationed in Mississippi, such that when the first of five waves of invasions came, the invasion was utterly crushed. In 1976 a large force of British transport helicopters flew to Florida. Air defenses destroyed some of them, but when the helicopters landed, they didn't unload crack troops, but huge numbers of poorly-armed religious Fanatics. They began attempting to take over the area, but the IBIS walker was nearby. They would never surrender, so the battle that followed was an exercise in futility. South of Montgomery, Alabama, the IBIS walker met huge groups of Fanatics. They had only the crudest makeshift weapons to be used against the huge walker, and some of them rigged up catapults and traps while others tried their best to scrounge military weapons that had some chance of at least damaging the walker. However, captured bazookas were completely ineffective against the walker, as were their traps and catapults, and without any signs of surrender, the crew of the IBIS walker was forced to show no mercy to the mixed force of men and women that made up the group of perhaps 20,000 Fanatics. Its great guns blew them apart by the hundreds and its machine guns, which in the first generation walkers were mounted just below the larger guns, tore into the unarmored paramilitary soldiers, such that it was very quickly out of ammunition. However, its nuclear reactor had plenty of fuel, such that when it was out of ammunition, the walker began stomping the ground and swinging its empty cannons, gruesomely killing Fanatics which ran screaming at the huge walker, hitting it with objects like Don Quixote tilting at windmills, and swarming it and shooting ropes over it to see if their combined weight could bring the walker down where it could be tied up like Gulliver. They did succeed in damaging one of the walker's empty cannons, but the gruesome battle only ended when all of the Fanatics were dead, and the dirty, bloody IBIS walker trudged back to Mississippi to be cleaned and repaired.

That very same IBIS walker was the only serious obstacle between Diablo and the rest of North America. If its battle with the Fanatics was one-sided, its battle was Diablo was even more so. On September 8th, 1980, it had a showdown in Texas, if showdown was the right word for two monstrous creatures engaging each other at distances that, without magnification, made one look like a spec in the distance to the other. An observer on a hill with a high-powered telephoto lens on his video camera recorded the encounter. The IBIS walker shot first, and the shells hit Diablo dead on in the chest. Diablo stumbled, but was otherwise completely unhurt by the powerful blasts. Diablo struck back, throwing great fireballs far into the distance, hitting the IBIS walker. With the first blast, both of its arm cannons melted, making them unusable. However, the IBIS walker was still mobile and the pilots within still alive, so the walker turned around and began moving to the north as fast as it could. It was nowhere near fast enough. Soon a second blast came, which cooked off the artillery shells stored in the IBIS walker, and it blew apart with a great explosion. The observer then stopped filming, and Chuck assumed he got out of the area as fast as he could.

With the slow progress of Diablo through South America and Latin America, there had already been a general migration of people from the southern to the northern states. With the destruction of the IBIS walker it became a headlong panic. Chuck Horner was five years old at the time, and living in Rochester, New York. His father was a radio tower construction manager, and his mother was a teacher. He still vaguely remembered eating dinner with his Dad, and his Dad telling him that the family was moving to Fort Good Hope. His Dad had a job offer up there, and that northern city was booming with population. In addition, in retrospect Chuck was sure his Dad was thinking about Diablo, and how if Diablo made a beeline for Rochester, he could make the city burn by Christmas 1980, and at least Fort Good Hope would be farther than Rochester from where Diablo was currently. So, Chuck's Mom helped him pack up his things and some clothes, telling him that he wouldn't have much use for shorts were they were going, as it only got warm enough to wear sorts about one month a year. She also told him to pack light, and that a lot of his possessions and toys would have to be donated, given away, or discarded. In October Chuck, his Mom, and his Dad all got into his Dad's car, as Mom had sold hers, and had put a pod on top of the car to store extra things. They had sold their house, furniture and all, and did not need a moving truck, and Chuck began the long road trip northwest. He only vaguely remembered when they finally drove into Fort Good Hope, and only later learned that Fort Good Hope was a small town of only a few hundred people in 1945, but in 1980 had a population in the tens of thousands and growing daily.

As for Diablo, he moved through Texas and turned east, and started his path of destruction, moving through Mississippi and Georgia, purposely destroying every manmade structure in his path, while his mere presence was an ecological disaster, killing plants and burning forests wherever he went. With his slow progress, loss of life directly from his solo onslaught was light, but the onslaught was economically devastating. Refugees swelled northern cities, and food became scarce, but with most of the Midwest spared the food shortages weren't too bad yet.

After years of torment, by the early 1980s all of America south of the Mason Dixon line but east of Texas was completely destroyed, with barely a single man-made structure still standing. Washington D.C. was destroyed, and government moved to northeast Siberia. Diablo, in his capriciousness, had not gone west of Texas since then. The middle south states were home to nuclear plants, which powered half of the country as high-power wires had previously crisscrossed the United States, bringing cheap nuclear power to all. With Diablo's destruction those plants were operating at much diminished generation due to the lower demand, but so far had been left alone. Diablo turned towards the nuclear plants, and finally began attacking them, as well as the new cities and towns that had spring up close to them. Most were shut down and their control rods lowered before Diablo turned on them, and most were destroyed relatively cleanly, with radiation limited to within a kilometer from them. However, when Diablo attacked the Denver nuclear plant, he destroyed the control room first, and his fireballs happened to lock the control rods in their retracted positions. Previous plants used 4% enriched uranium, but new ones used 14% enriched uranium for increased efficiency, which also made them more dangerous and increased the speed of the reaction. Thankfully, it was still physically impossible for them to make an uncontrolled chain reaction like weapons-grade uranium, and when the reactor exploded it was an explosion of a distinctly conventional sort. But the fallout was terrible. The area was fully evacuated, but a huge swath of Colorado would be hostile to human habitation for decades. Further, more than anything else the move through the Midwest caused widespread famine all around North America, and a lot of people starved to death in the months and years following. Concurrent with the destruction of the Midwest was a second invasion, this time a group of British Fanatics that came on cargo plans and quickly look over Nain in Labrador and began moving to take more cities. However, this second invasion was even more ill-prepared than the first, and in addition to an IBIS walker in the area, there were plenty of regular soldiers as well. They were still using M16 assault rifles generally, but now were armored with almost full-body Kevlar body armor with ceramic plate chest pieces. In addition, the IBIS walker was a second-generation machine, which had been improved in three ways. First, it had a more powerful power plant, allowing it to not only move faster, but for it to be practical for more armor to be applied to it. Second, it was much shorter, and was about 10 meters tall instead of 30, but much bulkier. Second, it was no longer manned. In a remote, secure location operators would remotely command the IBIS walker. This was the beginning of the integrated circuit era though, so it was only minimally independent. Even so, the automation allowed by the onboard computer allowed faster targeting and more accurate fire in addition to freeing up room previously needed for the crew, such that second invasion was crushed swiftly. A second wave of cargo planes tried to land, but Mexican jets destroyed most of them, and only a few Prophets landed. They engaged the robotic IBIS walker, but while they had been so effective against tanks at Khantayskoye Lake, the large IBIS walker had safeguards in place so as not to be as easily stopped by electricity. The combined electricity of the few Prophets was not enough to overload the robot, and the IBIS walker easily killed the Prophets. Diablo continued his meandering path of destruction through the Midwest, aloof to human politics. When he destroyed the main space center at Winnipeg the moon base was stranded for a few years, but it was already mostly self-sufficient by that time, and a few years later a small launch facility in Siberia started sending and receiving rockets. After Diablo had finished destroying every manmade structure east of the Rocky Mountains, Los Angeles was spared for the time being as he began moving toward New England.


	7. Chapter 7

On June 15th, 1994, just north of Londrina, the army was attacked again, this time by more than the little probing force that the IBIS walkers had dealt with before. This was a bit more of a sizable force of Imps and Demons, with no Greater Demons spotted among them. It was one that could also easily be taken out with the combined force of IBIS walkers, but army planners decided to track them with the walkers, and instead use the attack as a live-fire test of the effectiveness of the new infantry weapons.

It was about 10:00 AM local time, and Chuck and his platoon were on a small hill northwest of Londrina. For a live-fire exercise, the weather couldn't have been better. It was sunny with unlimited visibility, with almost no wind, and there was clear line of sight to the approaching demons.

Sergeant Nathan Der Wales gathered the squad up to talk to them before the engagement. He had a small manual in his hand, and his cloth facemask was on but it was designed to not interfere with breathing and speaking. Once everyone was gathered, he spoke.

"Alright, listen up. The top brass could easily have those demons in the distance taken out with the IBIS walkers. But it will do no good to test our small arms effectiveness when there's actually danger of being overrun. So, the name of the game is experimentation. We want to see a few things today. First, how far is too far for your guns. The manual says they are effective at 600 meters for point targets and 800 meters for massed firing. Second, we want to see how much stopping power the new rounds have. Manual says the bullets have a muzzle velocity of 760 meters per second, and if you put enough wind resistance on any bullet, over time it'll slow down to the point it won't penetrate anything. Our guns and bullets have already been tested on demon corpses in labs, but this will be the first time they have been tested on living, breathing demons. So, find a position where you can give your guns three points of contact, set your sights to 16X zoom if you have an M27 standard or SAW, 40x if you have an M27 DMR, and wait for orders to fire. Set your weapons to semi-automatic if they have the option."

Chuck found a good rock to prop his gun on, and Jonathan found a rock near him as well. A short distance away, a few other soldiers were setting up a minigun. He checked his rangefinder, and far in the distance, on another hill, were tiny specs in the distance. He peered at them through the scope and just barely made out their features. The range finder showed that they were currently just under four kilometers away, and at this range they were looked like specs of pepper unaided, and like tiny ants in the scope.

"Snipers, open fire," said Sergeant Der Wales. A pattering of semi-automatic fire began as the larger guns began firing, joined by the fire of other squads. Chuck watched closely at the approaching mass. At this distance, the bullets were all missing. But as the demons approached, Chuck finally started to see a few get winged by bullets, and then finally, a few slowed by injury, and finally, a spattering fell to the ground dead.

The demons were at 2 kilometers away, and now about the size of potato bugs in the scope, when Sergeant Der Wales ordered everyone begin firing. Chuck set his sights to match the distance and elevation change, did his best to keep the gun steady (though every little movement made the gun sway and jerk noticeably at 16x zoom), aimed at a Demon, and fired. The bullet obviously missed, but he wasn't sure exactly where it missed. Little puffs of dirt were being kicked up all around the approaching demons, but Chuck couldn't tell which puff was his, and wasn't sure where exactly to correct the sight. Plus, he thought to himself, the slightest irregularity in his bullet or barrel would be magnified greatly at that distance. He pulled his trigger 10 more times, and though he saw a demon or two hit, he couldn't even guess where his bullets were going at this distance.

Chuck felt a tap on his right shoulder, and looked at Jonathan. Jonathan brought his head close to Chuck's so he could be heard over the din of gunfire and the relatively slight muffling of the full cloth facemask.

"Check out the tree, 1260 meters away, about 30 meters to the left of that one Imp that is running faster than the other Imps and outpacing them."

Chuck saw the tree Jonathan was talking about and looked at it through the scope. It was getting peppered with bullet.

"What the hell?" he asked.

"Snipers and soldiers are using it to calibrate their shots," said Jonathan. "Pick a section of the tree, and see if you can consistently hit it. Once you can consistently hit it, try the same for demons."

Jonathan resumed firing, and Chuck set his sights on the tree in question, and found a spot that hadn't been shot in a while. He fired three shots at it, and one hit. He adjusted his sight just a tick to the left, and tried another three, two of which hit. It was still difficult at this range to hit anything, but with another three shots he had a good handle on where his bullets were going at least. And of course the demons were getting closer, and in time they would be easy pickings. They were about the size of cockroaches in his scope now, and he aimed at a Demon first, and fired two shots at it. One hit, then another. The Demon kept coming, and he fired five more times, missing twice. The Demon was now just less than 1000 meters from him, and one more hit and it began to slow as it bled out. He selected an Imp, now at this range having at least some definition in his scope, and fired at it four times, missing once, but putting three good shots into its chest, and it went down.

"They're crossing 800 meters to us," said Sergeant Der Wales. "Switch to three round burst."

Chuck did so, and got used to having ten bursts per magazine until he had to reload.

"Cease fire," said Sergeant Der Wales, and Chuck stopped, confused. There were still plenty of demons coming their way. He could only imagine what the demons were thinking to be toyed with like this.

Sergeant Der Wales was quiet a moment, and Chuck noticed that the demons were crossing to 500 meters. At this range, through his scope they looked like the size of army men.

"Full auto," said Sergeant Der Wales, and then a moment later, "Open fire."

Chuck aimed as best he could at the demons approaching, and the din of fire from a moment ago became a roar, punctuated unevenly by sniper fire and brief pauses as people unloaded. To Chuck's left, Kade, who had been firing at the distant demons with short bursts of his belt-fed automatic M27, began firing in long spurts, hosing the approaching demons down with bullets. The minigun was also fully set up and working, and put out a volume of fire far in excess of any other small arm. At 400 meters, there were no demons left approaching, and only a few moving on the ground.

"Cease fire," said Sergeant Der Wales.

The soldiers stood and marched down to the demons to see firsthand how effective their small arms were against them. At 400 meters from the firing position, the land was sprayed with bullets and covered in dead demons. There were about 100 meters of nothing but trampled grass, and then bullet holes in the ground and a spattering of dead demons. Chuck was looking at a demon with five bullet holes in the chest but none in the face when he heard Sergeant Nathan Der Wales nearby talking to First Lieutenant Yafe O. Zimmerman talking and eavesdropped on their conversation. Yafe was a good deal taller than Nathan, and Chuck guessed he was 1.7 meters tall. He couldn't tell anything about his hair, which was completely covered by his helmet, but he had brown eyes, a few dark spots on his slightly tanned skin, and with his cloth facemask off now that the skirmish was over, he could tell Yafe had a small white goatee and moustache. They had a scribe nearby taking notes, and were looking at the same demon he was.

"In one end and out the other," said Sergeant Der Wales. He rolled the large Demon over a little with his foot, and lifted its shoulder up with the muzzle of his gun to see the exit wounds.

"I'm glad to see it," said Lieutenant Zimmerman. "The bullets before had very poor penetration at this range."

"It's a little too small and clean for an exit wound," said Sergeant Der Wales, and Lieutenant Zimmerman nodded.

"It can't be helped," said Lieutenant Zimmerman. "It's true, the 5.56 rounds before tended to tumble and break up a bit inside people, giving them more stopping power. But they also had the aggravating tendency of just harmlessly bouncing off the thick skin of Demons and Imps if they hit them too far away. So, it is better to have some penetration, even clean penetration, then to hit the demons with a bullet that just bounces off harmlessly.

"Isn't there some way to revise the bullets to do that?" said Sergeant Der Wales. "Perhaps they could be made to penetrate a little, and explode. Or, deliver poison or thermite into the demons, so that they only need to be shot once to die, not half a dozen times."

"It might be possible," said Lieutenant Zimmerman. "But that would have the same trouble as, for example, equipping soldiers with smart bullets, like there is some talk of doing. Sure, it might be possible to make a $100 bullet with a tiny computer in it that corrects itself in flight like the rounds of the new IBIS walkers can, or perhaps just put a charge and a timer into the bullets so it breaks apart right before it hits the target, shredding it like a shotgun with the range of a rifle. But don't forget that the reason using a machine gun is practical in the first place is because bullets are cheap. If you start adding all sorts of fancy features to the bullet itself, it no longer becomes practical to hose down an area with rounds."

"You remind me a little of Abraham Lincoln," said Sergeant Der Wales.

"Oh, why's that?" said Lieutenant Zimmerman, smiling.

"I don't remember the specifics," said Sergeant Der Wales. "But I remember hearing a story about Abraham Lincoln at a weapons test near the start of the First American Civil War. People were showing off new repeating rifles, which could be loaded as fast as a lever was pulled. At the time, he thought that if such a thing were to come into mass use, the simple cost of ammunition for an army would become prohibitively expensive. But, when the repeating rifles began to show their use, he later decided to go ahead and have a few thousand ordered, because expense or not, there was a huge battlefield advantage to not having to wait 30 seconds between shots."

Lieutenant Zimmerman nodded. "Better weapons in general often trump concerns about money and short-term practicality. But you'll also remember that industrialization made the cartridge practical. If people had to make each cartridge individually, machine guns would never be practical. Just the same, I think someday soon the price of fancier bullets will come down to the point that they're practical for troops. At the very least, I can imagine our snipers getting smart bullets first, since they don't go through bullets like candy."

Sergeant Der Wales nodded. "Agreed. But for the time being, I'm glad to see that the bullets we have are quite effective, and perhaps more importantly, more important than the poor guys at Aracatuba had."

Lieutenant Zimmerman nodded. "I'll agree with that as well. Perhaps this time history won't repeat itself."

The two officers then walked off to check other bodies, and Chuck was left with something else to think about. He continued on, and spent the nights of the next week reading a bit more from _Deicide_.


	8. Chapter 8

In 1983, the third invasion came. The skies over New England darkened with huge numbers of Australian cargo planes, which avoided air defenses and forced landings on highways and runways. This time, in addition to the same poorly-armed Fanatics that had attacked in 1976 were large numbers of the same kind of Prophets that had led to the disastrous battle of Khantayskoye Lake. This time, with enough Prophets and Fanatics, huge numbers of Australians charged the IBIS walker in New England, and succeeded in overloading its electrical safeguards, destroying it. They then spread to conquer, foolishly. About 1/5th of them moved north to take Nain, and another 1/5th moved south to attack New York City. The remaining 3/5ths moved northwest, to where Diablo was in the process of destroying the city of Timmins. Feeling were generally mixed when the invasion force arrived, as it was obvious that they intended to conquer, but there was hope they had some plan for destroying Diablo and finally stopping the terrible onslaught that threatened to, in its own, slow march of progress, eventually leave all of North America not merely without human population, as it may have been 10,000 years before, but in a state of utter desolation and lifelessness like it had never seen in millions of years, and far worse than the last ice age.

However, glimmers of hope turned again to fear and horror as the Fanatics attacked with more spirit than planning. In a suicidal charge, the unarmored Fanatics, who would have at least had a few more precious minutes of life if they had been wearing fire suits, charged headlong at Diablo. It was exactly as effective as charging at a hurricane. He threw huge fireballs, burning them by the hundreds, and long before they could even get close enough to touch Diablo, his intense heat burned them. The Prophets did a little better, and could shoot lightning far enough away that they didn't need to brave such intense heat. However, the lighting was ineffective against the gigantic beast, and his fireballs incinerated every Prophet in the force. Next, desperately, the 1/5th of the forth north of New York broke the assault and moved to attack Diablo as well, and the force that had successfully taken Nain moved down as well to attack. Both attacks were hopeless beyond all definition of the world, and Diablo wasn't even harmed in the slightest by the assaults. The cities that Australia had taken only months before were attacked and destroyed now by Diablo, and New York City, saved only months before from Australian dominance, now went up in flames as fireballs rained down on it from the Devil himself. Australian reinforcements tried to fly in to help, but Diablo's fireballs seemed to track targets like magnets, and even at 10,000 meters above the earth, fireballs blew up cargo planes as they flew. In a last, desperate act, ICBMs from Australia carrying nuclear bombs detonated close to Diablo. The US and Mexican governments had agreed years ago not to bother trying to use nuclear weapons on Diablo, as it was pure foolishness that a weapon that destroyed with bursts of wind and intense heat would be at all effective against a being that was too big to be much affected by the wind and seemed to be the avatar of heat itself. As such, the charred area around Diablo was charred a little more, and the ruins of Quebec City became not only flattened but radioactive as well. Such was the foolishness of the nuclear attack that Chuck remembered talk that such an attack was some sort of misguided attempt to spite the United States, though even that made little sense seeing as no one at all was killed in the nuclear attack.

Diablo moved down to Florida again, though there had been no large-scale recovery there after he had destroyed it the first time. Keeping to the continental shelf, he then went to Cuba, though he had already destroyed Havana with fireballs on the way up. So, he went back down to Venezuela, probably to the chagrin of the demons still there, and many Imps that got too close burned in Diablo's aura.


	9. Chapter 9

On June 22nd, 1994, the force of soldiers came upon Aracatuba. Chuck Horner could smell the reek of bones long before he reached the area. When he did come upon the battlefield, he saw a gruesome sight. The bodies of thousands of unburied dead, both demon and human, littered the ground. Ten years of time and rot had done its work, and bones littered the ground. Chuck noted that the M16 guns and 5.56 mm ammunition littering the ground was all weather-worn but intact, but the Kevlar helmets and clothing the soldiers wore was all in tatters around their bones and desiccated flesh.

Jonathan Jones walked alongside Chuck Horner. Jonathan put his facemask on and put his hand to his nose to help stave off some of the stench of the area.

"I vaguely remember what happened here, and read about it in the news," said Jonathan. "But you're the historian. What really happened here?"

Chuck thought for a moment to recall, and then spoke. "For years the forces at Cordoba had been fighting up and down the southern tip of South America, and had liberated Florianópolis and Curitiba. In 1984 a force of 25,000 infantry and four second-generation IBIS walkers went north of Curitiba to test how close they could get to the Gate to Hell. Though resistance was light as far north as Londrina, but once they got to Aracatuba they were overwhelmed by a mixed force largely composed of Demons, with a few clusters of Imps and two Greater Demons. In the ensuring battle, first 90% of the foot soldiers were killed. Then one of the IBIS walkers was disabled and had to retreat. Then the remaining 10% of the foot soldiers were killed, and the remaining three IBIS walkers were attacked directly. One was destroyed and two were damaged in the retreat back to Curitiba."

"Did anyone at all survive?" asked Jonathan.

Chuck shook his head. "Anyone fleeing from the battle was cut down in the retreat. Imps can certainly run a lot faster than a person."

"And those four IBIS walkers? Those were unmanned by that time, right?"

"Right," said Chuck. "They were all controlled remotely by radio, with an internal computer to automate most processes, just like the third generation IBIS walkers that escort us."

Jonathan frowned. "Or perhaps it's us that escort them. There are 43,000 of us and seven of them. It's all us foot soldiers that are expendable."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that exactly," said Chuck. "If an IBIS walker got to the Gate to Hell without infantry support, there would be no one to go down and find a way to close it. And besides, it's more symbiotic than that. Without IBIS walker fire support, Greater Demons would easily kill us all. And without all us foot soldiers to support the IBIS walkers, they would be easily overwhelmed and destroyed by Imps and Demons."

Chuck walked for a time in silence, thinking. He then stopped, and Jonathan stopped too.

"Jonathan, what happens if this happens to us as well?" asked Chuck, making a sweeping gesture with his hand. "What if we fail like the first two incursions and all of us die?"

Jonathan was quiet for a moment. He then went to an old M16 on the ground next to a skeleton, and pulled the charging handle. It ejected a 5.56 mm round. He pocketed it, and took out a spare magazine and took a 7.62 mm round from it. Its tungsten carbide tip gleamed in the midday sun.

"Look around you," said Jonathan. "Look at the clothes those soldiers wore, and the guns they have. And then look at yourself, and your gun." He took out the 5.56 mm round and held both bullets up together, the 7.62 mm one obviously bigger than the 5.56 mm round.

"We've got bigger rounds this time?" asked Chuck, trying to guess what Jonathan was getting at prematurely.

Jonathan shook his head. "It's not that they're bigger rounds. It's that they're **different **rounds. We could all be carrying medieval hand-cannons that shoot balls the size of a pomegranate, and that wouldn't help. We have different rounds in our different guns this time, and are wearing different armor because we as humans learned from our mistakes and adapted."

Jonathan tossed the 5.56 mm round aside, and put the 7.62 mm round back in the magazine, and put the magazine back in his vest. He then walked over to the skeleton of a Demon and continued.

"Now, look at this Demon. No tools. No clothes. And I would bet you anything that if you were to kill a Demon today and examine its skeleton, it would look exactly the same as this one's skeleton, aside from the weathering of course."

Chuck was silent, and let Jonathan continue.

"This...all this..." Jonathan made a sweeping motion with his hand. "This could all be us in a week or two. And as strange as it is to say, in the grand scheme of things, whether we win or lose doesn't really matter."

Chuck looked strangely at Jonathan. "What do you mean by that?"

Jonathan continued. "Well, say that the Gate to Hell opened 50 years before it actually did, say, in 1925 or so. Can you imagine how utterly hopeless it would be to try to fight off Imps with a bolt-action rifles, or kill Demons with 30 kilogram Maxim guns? And even if a full barrage of artillery could be mustered in range, it would never be accurate enough to provide the sustained firepower required to kill a Greater Demon. Now, let's say that the Gate to Hell opened 50 years after it actually did, in 2025. Can you imagine how easy it would be to do the exact same thing? We might have smart bullets, or railguns, or weapon sights that ensure a one-hit kill every time. We might have whole robot armies that could fight for us while we control them from the safety of Cordoba. And imagine if it was 100 years after it actually opened? We might have nuclear-powered ray guns that fire in streams of energy and instantly and completely kill everything we aim at from many kilometers away. We might even be able to just bomb every demon in the world from space, far from the range of Greater Demon void blasts. My point is, whether the Gate to Hell opened in the year 1000, the year 2000, or the year 3000, the demons that came from it would be eternal and unchanging, forever forsaking tools, and only have the power to overwhelm and destroy us if we weren't sufficiently advanced to have the tools to kill them."

Chuck nodded. "I see where you're going. So, if we fail, it doesn't mean that the United States is doomed. It's not like the demons will suddenly start using tools, or start taking orders from a central authority, or adapt to become shock-proof and charge into Curitiba."

Jonathan nodded in agreement. "Exactly. So long as demons remain static and we remain dynamic, there's really no way in the grand scheme of things that the demons can win." Jonathan paused a moment, and then continued. "Unless, they either happen to attack in enough numbers to kill every human on the planet, which seeing as that they don't use boats and can't swim well, isn't very likely. Or, us dynamic humans do something ourselves that threatens us and really finishes us off."

"Like start using 300 megaton atomic bombs on each other, or summoning greater horrors than the demons to destroy us?" piped in Chuck.

"Exactly. But...if that's what's necessary, then the United States has already won. The great empires of the old world are shattered and Balkanized, and the only other remaining great power, Mexico, not only has never shown any ill-will to the United States before, but teeters on the brink of a government collapse. It's a victory of endurance rather than a victory of domination, to be sure, but a victory nonetheless. Now, that's a reminder that the Gate to Hell didn't just happen to open for no reason. It was humans that opened the gate, to cause death and destruction on other humans. Thus, regardless of whether we win or lose, and whether we are successful of getting to the Gate to Hell or not, with Diablo dead humanity no longer faces a serious threat to its own survival except by humanity itself."

"Don't forget Pharol the Black," said Chuck Horner.

"Eh," said Jonathan dismissively. "He's powerful, but I don't think he's any more invincible than Diablo was. Without some human faction to cheer him on and actively prevent the United States from finding a way to destroy him, Pharol will also die just like Diablo did. He's powerful, but just as ancient and static as any Demon. If he can't be killed today, we have only to flee from him and endure until the weapons of tomorrow are ready to be used against him."

Jonathan and Chuck continued on. Chuck was still uneasy about the increase in Demon activity and the sight of so many dead soldiers, but had a new perspective to think about. He put up his own facemask to help mask some of the odor of the place, and Jonathan neglected to play his harmonica since doing so would mean removing his facemask.

As the journey continued, Chuck read more of _Deicide_ before going to bed each night.


	10. Chapter 10

Concurrent with the second American incursion in South America, in 1984 the great Mexican battleship _Manuel Azueta_ spotted a new kind of humanoid never seen before off the western coast of Africa. It was harassing the coast of British-controlled Mauritania near Nouakchott when a large figure was seen with telescopes from the desk of the battleship. It was about four times the size of a human, looked similar to a beautiful man, and had a buckler-style shield and gladius-style sword, and bathed the areas around it in light green light. It was an angel, and could only be more obviously an angel if it had wings. But the great figure was wing-less, and thankfully could not fly, or else the battleship would have been destroyed with no hope of retaliation. It shot a glowing blue orb at the battleship, very similar to the void blasts of demons, which hit and rocked the battleship greatly, but it had a displacement of 38,200 metric tons and was too steady and armored to sink. The battleship shot back with all nine of its 400 mm guns, but found the Angel had an identical aura to the demon aura, and was protected from harm in the same way. It would have probably traded shots with the Angel until it or the Angel was destroyed, but Australian submarines began harassing the battleship, and the _Manuel Azueta_ had to retreat back to a Mexican shipyard on the east coast of Greenland.

Mexico never recovered from the destruction of Mexico City in 1979, and though it formed a small government center in the Queen Elizabeth Islands, it had much more difficulty than the United States in creating a stable government after the fall of its government center. Seattle and Los Angeles split off and became independent city-states. Buenos Aires was also a thorn in America's side, as the Mexican government had no means or will to control it, but Mexico was still a US ally, so troops in the area were harassed by lawless gangs that they needed to put down themselves. One lawless gang even got a hold of a company of light tanks and used it to attack the barracks at Cordoba, but the uprising was repulsed by the soldiers there. Also, builders set up another cluster of Tesla coils north of the US-governed city of Curitiba, which prevented total disaster when the second expedition north failed and the surviving IBIS walkers retreated. All three remaining IBIS walkers were heavily damaged, but could be salvaged and repaired rather than being rebuilt from scratch. Soon after, another cluster of Tesla coils was built north of the ruins of Asuncion and Salta.

Nain was also a thorn in the US's side. Diablo had turned south before attacking Nain and Port Harrison, the last American city east of the Mississippi, which had grown to a population of tens of thousands in the recent assaults from refugees fleeing to the city. It also had plentiful nuclear power plants in the area, and was where the other half of most of the electricity for the United States came from before Diablo's assault, and like the Midwest's plants before, now most of the plants were shut down or operating at much reduced capacity. So, the untouched city of Nain became a staging area for a new foolhardy Australian assault, and the fourth invasion didn't need to start with a large airlift like the first three did. The Mexican battleship _Manuel Azueta_ pounded the city, but had no ground troops to force the city to surrender and had to move off when it was out of shells, allowing Australian transport ships to slip in thousands more fanatics. In 1985, Fanatics attacked the last fully functioning nuclear power plant at Richmond Gulf, which was indeed operating at full capacity, and defended by nothing but a few guards with pistols, which immediately surrendered in the face of mobs of thousands of religious Fanatics, both British and Australian. The Fanatics forced their way into the plant, ransacking it, and a few of them went to the control room. What happened next was unclear. It may have been accidental, and Fanatics might have killed the operators and been helpless to understand the controls and prevent the meltdown. Or perhaps they had specifically forced the operators to override the fail-safes, retract the control rods, and even increase the flow of fuel to the reactor. Whatever the case, there was a great meltdown at the plant, which exploded violently, killing a few hundred people instantly, but raining billowing clouds of radiation on Fanatics for kilometers around. Death for them wasn't instant, but thousands of Fanatics died in agony over the next few days, and bought Port Harrison a few more weeks of freedom. When more Fanatics arrived and the city surrendered, the chance that the first assault was an accident further decreased, as a second time Fanatics went to a nearby power plant, and let themselves be killed by its explosion and radiation. Questions still remained about that, but Chuck wondered if someone was maliciously ordering religious zealots to kill themselves in mass suicide, or if both attacks were the results of stupidity instead of malice. Either way, Fanatics destroyed the rest of the nuclear plants in the area with no further catastrophic meltdowns, so perhaps they were indeed simply uneducated and didn't understand the concept of nuclear power and radiation.


	11. Chapter 11

At Rio Verde the army stopped and fortified the hills around the city. It was obvious why Rio Verde was chosen to make a stand. First, the number and severity of demon attacks were increasing, and it was obvious that if the attacks continued while the army was on the move, it would be at a distinct disadvantage and be disorganized and unprotected if a major offensive came. Second, Rio Verde was a major crossroads, and five major highways converged on the area. Third, the area used to be farmland, though it was overgrown now, but as a result was still largely flat, with areas of slight elevation that could see kilometers around. And fourth, though the city used to have 200,000 people in it, it was now totally abandoned, with many of its structures burned out from when Diablo went south and walked close to the city a decade and a half ago, and the standing structures were almost all abandoned and decaying, save for a few hundred inhabited by squatters and nomads, so they wouldn't have to worry about protecting a civilian population. So, the word was given to dig in, and Chuck took out his entrenching tool and with the rest of his comrades began filling countless sandbags with dirt, while other soldiers set up lines of M18 Claymore mines. Most of the infantry was concentrated in the northwest, while the IBIS walkers were southeast of them, as the topography of the area made it likely that most attacks would come from the north or northwest. One IBIS walker, however, was in front of the main mass of infantry, and looked out on a small hill in the northwest. After preparations of the area was finished, there was nothing left to do but wait.

Chuck Horner was in a heavy tank south of Khantayskoye Lake, sitting at the gunner position. Jonathan Jones was driving, Nathan Der Wales was the commander, and Kade was loader. The tank rumbled as it was driving, and Sergeant Der Wales was looking through a periscope.

"Halt!" said Sergeant Der Wales, and the tank stopped. "Positive two degrees off axis. Prophet spotted. Do you see him, Chuck?"

Chuck checked his viewfinder. Through its magnified glass, he saw a man in the distance, clad only in robes.

"I see him," said Chuck.

"Let him have it!" said Sergeant Der Wales.

Chuck put the dot of the viewfinder on the man, and first fired the main tank shell. The tank gave a great boom, but missed the Prophet slightly, though it struck a tree near him dead on. A section of the large tree exploded into smithereens, which doubtlessly would have at least injured any normal man standing that close to such an explosion, but as the tree toppled over Chuck was worried and infuriated to see that the man was unharmed.

"Reload, high explosive," said Chuck, and Kade began the reload process.

Chuck began firing at the man with the coaxial machine gun, but the man ducked behind trees. It was hard to tell at this distance, but he swore that one or two bullets hit the man, but he must have been mistaken because the man was unhurt. He fired a second tank round, but that time the man was behind a tree, and again was unharmed. Next, the man raised his arms and pointed at the tank, and great bolts of electricity began shooting from his hands.

Chuck and the rest of the crew were insulated from the electrical blast, such as they weren't instantly electrocuted, but the tank engine shut off and the interior lights went off as well, to be replaced by the soft red glow of emergency lights.

"Get the hatch, Chuck," said Sergeant Der Wales. "This tank's a sitting duck now."

Chuck nervously went for the metal hatch, hoping he wouldn't be touching it if the Prophet shot more electricity at the tank.

"Yes, good plan," said Chuck. "Let's get out of the tank and surrender. Our feeling of helplessness is our best friend."

"What are you talking about?" said Jonathan Jones from the driver's seat. "We'll get out of the tank and fight to the death or escape, not surrender. When we die, we will die with our arms unbound!"

Chuck was about to say something, but jerked his hand away from the hatch as electricity began to shoot through the tank again. This time it was a much more prolonged zap. He began to smell burning plastic, and knew that the insulators protecting the crew from electric shots were burning or melting.

"It's going to cook off the tank rounds," said Kade, and Chuck watched in horror as electricity played over the tank rounds, and was helpless as one exploded, triggering the rest of the rounds to explode and killing them all.


	12. Chapter 12

Chuck sat up in his tent, breathing heavily. In the distance, he heard a few booms from IBIS walkers, which sounded just like the explosions in his nightmare. He caught his breath and felt the extreme relief of knowing that a nightmare wasn't real, and he wasn't really part of the doomed Khantayskoye Lake expedition.

It was July 13th, 1994, and it was rather pleasant weather in Rio Verde, all told. It was sunny and slightly cloudy, with temperatures just around 28 degrees Celsius. Sporadic attacks had been increasing, but after a quick lunch of B-rations, it looked like the day might be relatively quiet, and it might be a few more days before a big battle happened. While eating, he thought on his dream, and was reminded of American failures: the attack on Fort Good Hope, the battle of Khantayskoye Lake, the disastrous retreat south from Borborema, and most worrying of all, the previous two failed incursions. He tried to cheer himself up by thinking of American victories as well. After all, America did defeat Canada and successfully fended off three separate invasions of Fanatics, for what that was worth, though the other two invasions were more successful. After lunch, Chuck and Jonathan manned their guard posts and chatted idly as the afternoon wore on, occasionally interrupted by radio messages in their earpieces.

At around 3:00 PM a system wide alert went out that the forward IBIS walker had seen masses of demons approaching, and that all soldiers were to man their posts and prepare for battle. Soon after, Sergeant Nathan Der Wales came on the radio and began giving specific instructions about who should be positioned where. Chuck looked out at the long-overgrown farmlands beyond. It was indeed a good position, and he had an unobstructed view for many kilometers. Lighting was also extremely good, and he was glad he wouldn't need his bulky night vision attachment. Further, work of digging in and building up was finished, to the point that Chuck could stand comfortably in the dug-out trenches and rest his M27 on a sandbag and look out at the area beyond. He had his 16X zoom flipped on, and things that were tiny specs without it were large and detailed as he looked out to the small hills in the distance, though he was annoyed that every tiny movement he made caused the sight to jump and buck. He also turned on the rangefinder, which had a battery that could last 80 hours or so, and found that the farthest hill he could see was about 6000 meters from where he was, and was a small mound in his scope, and looked like it was covered by pepper at this distance.

Jonathan was to Chuck's right, and as soon as he saw the specs in the distance, he idly sang to himself "Come the archers...come the infantry. Come the archers of hell." Chuck said nothing, and looked through his scope at the approaching tiny specs, and tried his best to contain his worry. Chuck wondered if anyone else was as worried as he was, and looked around at the people near him, but with the impending battle they all had their cloth facemask up like he did, so everyone became anonymous and their faces seemed the same.

At around 4:00 PM he saw his first cluster of demons in the distance. Already far to the northwest he could hear distant booming, and when he trained his sights on the source, he could pick out the IBIS walker already firing. He listened in his earpiece and heard the orders from Sergeant Der Wales: "Snipers and mortars, open fire. General infantry and minigunners, hold fire until you have targets within 1,000 meters. General infantry, set all guns to single shot. The boys at logistics made doubly sure that we all have plenty of ammunition, so no need to be stingy with your shots, but you aren't going to hit much at that distance on automatic."

Chuck looked at an ammunition crate that he was near. It was certainly true that it would take a long time to go through it. He had 10 full magazines of 30 rounds each in his vest pockets weighing him down, and a large stack of full magazine clips to his right easily at hand, ready to be loaded as fast as he was able. He turned his attention back towards the approaching force, still just specs at their current distance. He heard the popping sound as the sniper rifle infantry began their fire, and in the far distance saw a few of the Imps drop down. But now, the Imps and Demons were running at them at full force, and he knew that since demons had the endurance of sprinters, they would be in range very soon. Indeed, he watched his range finder tick down, and reach 1,000 meters. As expected, Sergeant Der Wales commanded "Open fire!" and mass, grouped firing began. Chuck picked out a target in the distance, made sure he was sighted in properly, grew as still as he could, and fired his first shot. It missed, naturally, but he had plenty more, and as quick as he could pull the trigger he gave his best guess and shot at the masses of Imps and Demons approaching, and did score a few lucky hits before he had to reload. In addition, the IBIS walkers directed their fire at the incoming groups, and Chuck saw large explosions as groups of approaching demons were destroyed while smaller mortar shells did their part to thin the demons out. As the demons got within 800 meters, the accuracy of the huge masses of infantry increased to the point that, supported by the long range fire of the IBIS walkers, the first wave of attackers petered out.

"Not a bad start," said Chuck.

After a few more minutes of fighting, Chuck had formed a little pile of spent magazines on his left, and was slowly going through the large stack of magazines on his right. So far, only a few demons had made it to within 500 meters of him, and those that did were quickly killed one way or another.

Chuck listened in on his headset. "More demons approaching from the northeast. Expect less fire from the IBIS walkers as they focus fire on that approach," said Sergeant Der Wales.

Chuck signed, and then shrugged. The demons wouldn't get close enough to hurt them at the rate they were going, even without artillery support. Plus, each platoon did have a mortar team, which was busy laying down fire; though each air detonation of the mortar didn't have anywhere near the effect of the large artillery rounds the IBIS walkers were firing.

Suddenly, Chuck heard and explosion far off in the distance to his left. He turned his weapon sight just in time to see a second energy blast hitting the IBIS walker that was on point, and its energy shield dissipating. The IBIS walkers' arms boomed in response to the assault, and from where Chuck was he couldn't see the source, but from the results it was obvious that a Greater Demon was approaching. Apparently he wasn't the only one surprised by the turn of events, as his helmet radio commanded to keep firing.

"Keep firing," said Sergeant Der Wales. "Every second you're not firing your guns is a second that the demons can use to get closer."

Chuck went back to picking out targets and shooting them, purposely ignoring the battle that was raging between the IBIS walker and some Greater Demon far in the distance. The masses of Demons and Imps had increased, though now they turned and rather than running straight at the fortifications, they were converging on the walker.

"General infantry, switch to three round bursts," said Sergeant Der Wales. "All units lay down fire around that walker. Give it some cover."

Any demons still running towards the fortifications were given a moment's respite as anyone that had line-of-site to the IBIS walker began focusing to protect it. Chuck saw a void blast hit the walker square in the chest, but it was too heavily armored and bottom heavy to tip much, and resumed firing soon after. But there were too many Imps and Demons approaching the walker like a mass of ants, and soon they were upon it. The Imps grabbed hold of the walkers' legs, largely ineffectively, like the Fanatics that had attacked the first generation IBIS walkers in Alabama years before. But when a cluster of Demons approached the robotic third generation IBIS walker, they began slashing at it with their claws, slicing at the legs and gashing the metal. From where Chuck was, even with 16X magnification the IBIS walker looked like a plastic army man and detail was difficult to make out, but he could see the IBIS walker raise one foot and stomp a Demon, crushing it with its weight. Also, stray shots pinged off the side of the walker as soldiers tried their best to clear the robot of clinging humanoids. However, the robot began swaying and swinging violently and soon fell over face-forward onto the ground. The demons briefly cleared the area as another void blast came in hit the robot square on the top of its humanoid head, which dented and deformed. Another blast hit the prone robot, destroying what was left of its ammunition stores, and it exploded in a large fireball. Chuck gasped. The expedition had 43,000 foot soldiers to spare but only 7 IBIS walkers, and a single walker destroyed risked the expedition falling below the threshold that it could defend again and risked a repeat of the previous two expeditions.

Over his radio he heard "Keep on burst fire for the time being. That Greater Demon will be in range soon, but for now, focus on giving the Imps and Demons everything you've got."

Chuck did as he was told, and was pleased to find that the Imps and Demons were thinning out. Shooting three bullets at a time at a range of about 500 meters was very effective against both kinds of creatures, and he was easily able to put an Imp down with one burst, and a Demon down with a few bursts if he was careful and didn't miss too much. They thinned out, and the onslaught stopped as the Greater Demon came into view in the distance.

"Back to single shot," said his Sergeant. "Don't be disheartened if it doesn't look effective. Every hit against the Greater Demon's shield saps its energy. Hit it enough times, and it WILL die just like every other demon."

The Greater Demon was at about 1,100 meters away, and difficult to hit. However, its greater size provided a larger target, and soon it was putting off hundreds of little energy sparks as bullets pinged off it. It cast a void blast at the army, and hit with about the same force as an IBIS walker's cannons. Dozens of soldiers died with each blast, and Chuck knew that it was a matter of luck whether one of those orbs would hit close to him. But, his luck held for the time being, and two IBIS walkers were retasked to engage, and their blasts supplemented the seemingly ineffectual sparks or energy on the Greater Demon. With so many soldiers concentrating on it, and two IBIS walkers blasting away as fast as their railguns could charge, it was only a few minutes before the glow dissipated from the demon, and another few shots from the IBIS walkers killed the beast.

Chuck breathed a sigh of relief, and looked around him. He could see a few defensive positions shattered, but otherwise it looked like the foot soldiers of the United States Army had come through well. He was also informed that four IBIS walkers had engaged and destroyed another Greater Demon to the north with only light damage to show for it, and were now mopping up clusters of Demons and Imps with their cannons and machine guns. "So far, so good," said Chuck, and Jonathan nodded in agreement.

The respite was brief. Around 5:30 PM large masses of Imps were spotted in the north, and a few clusters of Demons. Again, as soon as they were in range the army opened fire. The new guns found their marks easily and Chuck killed many Imps. However, the sheer number of them was overwhelming. They got within 500 meters, then within 400, and Chuck was ordered to switch to automatic fire. He did so, emptying his magazine after magazine into the coming mass, as IBIS walker artillery fire did its best to thin them out. But they got closer and closer, down to 300 meters, and some as close as 200. Chuck switched to 8x view, and then down to 2x.

"Faster!" Sergeant Der Wales ordered. "Fire and reload faster, or they'll close with us!"

Chuck ejected his spent magazine, and as fast as he could, rammed a full magazine in and charged the gun. He emptied the clip in a few seconds, and repeated the action, making sure not to slip up, as fast reloads could easily become sloppy reloads where a soldier dropped the magazine, put the magazine in backwards, or worse, damaged the gun. The Imps were still coming. He selected a few of the closest, giving a few bullets to each, and then reloaded again. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Private Kade working frantically to change his box magazine on his gun.

"Arm the claymores!" he heard through the radio. A few minutes later, and now within 50 meters of the sandbag embankments, he heard blasts go off, and each one of the anti-personnel mines detonated and ripped into the oncoming little Imps.

"Grenades!" was the next thing he heard, and Chuck briefly paused shooting, picked up a waiting grenade, armed it, and flung it out, as did every other member of the first line of defense. Each had been armed and thrown at a slightly different time, so what followed was a series of loud pops like a line of firecrackers going off, as the defensive fragmentation grenades further thinned the groups of Imps running at them. In a few more seconds, if there were any more Imps left, Chuck would soon get his first taste of close combat. However, again luck held out, and the long run at the fortification, the claymores, and finally the grenades had succeeded in thinning out the thousands of Imps that had charged towards them. The combined fire of the soldiers finally finished off the charging Imps, and one Imp fell down to the ground, dead, less than 10 meters from where Chuck was standing. A brief silence fell over the battle as gunfire tapered off.

"Another wave coming!" said Sergeant Der Wales. Chuck looked off at the distance in the north and saw at about 800 meters another large cluster of Imps surrounding larger Demons, and worse, another one of those wretched Greater Demons.

"Back to burst fire," said Sergeant Der Wales. "Concentrate on the Imps and Demons. Let the IBIS walkers deal with the Greater Demon."

Chuck finished off the rest of his magazine on automatic in the general direction of the cluster, reloaded, and switched to burst fire. He then steeled himself for another onslaught. It was getting close to 6:00 now, and the sun was just touching the horizon in the west. Chuck set his sights back to 16X zoom and worked to fire quickly and accurately at the masses of humanoids now charging at him. There were not as many Imps in this wave as the last, and by the time the group was within 400 meters, all the Imps were dead. However, the Demons were still coming, and were annoyingly durable compared to their smaller brethren. Chuck was reminded that the mines had now been used up, and on cue switched again to automatic fire. In the far distance, he saw streaks of light emanating from the Greater Demon, and great flashes as cannon fire stuck it and bounced off its energy shield, but he was more concerned about the approaching Greater Demons. They got close, and again a volley of grenades were thrown, injuring all Demons they detonated close to, but the larger Demons could stand greater injury without dying. They approached the line of soldiers, thinned out but not quite thinned out enough, and there were uninjured Demons among them. Thankfully, they ended up largely charging to the left of Chuck's position, and as Chuck switched both scopes down and looked through iron sights, he saw the poor soldiers of another platoon group get slashed with claws, picked up and thrown, and get impaled by the long claws of the Demons. However, the combined fire of the soldiers nearby was enough to take the Demons down before they had killed too many soldiers.

With that wave finally destroyed, Chuck switched back to 16X sites, and was horrified he didn't need them to see the Greater Demon, which had used the assault as cover to move closer to the IBIS walkers and soldiers. He briefly checked his rangefinder and as he had guessed, the terrible Greater Demon was within 150 meters of him, its halo of light not shining as bright as when it was first spotted, but obviously still shining enough to make it bulletproof. He looked back at what the Greater Demon was focusing on, and saw a badly battered IBIS walker with one cannon held limp and parts of its chest warped, its chest-mounted machine guns all bent and useless. With no further Demons to fight, the soldiers turned their attention to the Greater Demon and began shooting it. The Greater Demon stopped, turned, and lifted its arms towards Chuck's comrades. Out shot black swirling orbs and to Chuck's left he saw a cluster of soldiers thrown around like leaves in the fall. Another one hit, this time closer, and he felt the wind from the closer explosion. He emptied his clip into the Greater Demon just as a new orb shot from its hand, coming right at him. He knew it was coming, and saw it coming, but could think of nothing to do that would help if it struck close. And indeed, the dark orb struck the ground close to Chuck, throwing him away and into the sky. He tumbled and free-fell, seeing the world spin around him, and landed about 10 meters away, hitting his head on a bolder and bruising his limbs. There was no heat, as the peculiar thing about the void blasts of the Greater Demons was that they were pure force, and didn't greatly increase or decrease the temperature of the area around them. However, the force of the blasts was just as powerful as a bomb's blast even without the burning heat. But the new armor was designed specifically for this kind of punishment, and though Chuck was momentarily blind and deaf to all the violence, he was not dead. The armor's padding had absorbed the lion's share of the impact, and Chuck slowly, shakily got to his feet, his head swimming. He had no idea where his gun was. He looked at the IBIS walker, and saw that its chest plate was now torn off entirely, and its nuclear reactor showing and vulnerable. Also, the Greater Demon was uncomfortably close, so close that he could have counted each shining white tentacles streaming from its large head, glinting in the last light of the setting sun. He shakily got to his feet and saw a soldier nearby. He checked the young soldier, who was still, knelt down, and took off the young soldier's helmet and facemask. He gasped, and found the soldier that landed close to him was Jonathan, now dead with a broken neck.

"You...you killed him," sputtered Chuck, looking at the Greater Demon. He realized that the void blast must have hit to the right of him, and that Jonathan must have gotten more of the force than he did. There were no pings of energy around the demon, and Chuck realized that at that moment, there probably weren't any other soldiers in range of the demon, and the IBIS walkers were probably out of cannon ammunition and in the process of reloading. Indeed, he looked in the distance and saw one of the robots loading more rounds into its back, while the heavily damaged IBIS walker stood disabled, close enough to see clearly, ready for a final blow that would reduce the number of IBIS walkers down to five.

The Greater Demon sensed Chuck, and stopped briefly. It was closer still now, and passing by the ruined platoon heedless of them, but when Chuck spoke it turned to face Chuck and looked into his eyes. Chuck wasn't sure if the creature was somehow communicating with him, or he was just remembering something from long ago, but one way or another, he thought to himself "Your feeling of helplessness is your best friend, savage." It then turned away from the unarmed soldier and prepared to throw one last void blast at the disabled IBIS walker.

Chuck's face grew red, as blood filled in his veins and his anger surged. He stood, looked around, and saw a minigun close by, thrown by an explosion and devoid of its user. He went to the minigun, which still had a heavy drum of ammunition below it. Chuck could barely guess how much ammunition it had, but it felt full. He turned it on and was pleased that it started spinning. With all his strength he picked it up, propped gun on a sandbag to try to stabilize it a bit, and pulled the trigger.

The minigun was difficult to handle, and Chuck was inexperienced with the heavy gun. But it began spitting out bullets and occasional tracer rounds, so without any sights to guide him Chuck was still able to guide it on target. The gun began pinging off the Greater Demon, and Chuck was pleased to find that soon after, the energy sparks stopped, meaning that he was now hitting the demon's skin directly.

"Ha!" said Chuck. "You might have magic, but I have a gun!"

Bullets tore into the demon, shredding bits of flesh off it. It turned to Chuck, its arms rising, and it prepared to fire. Chuck was horrified, and tried to stay calm and keep the gun aimed square at the demon, though he saw his doom approaching. He thought "A gun...no...what I have are bullets. Just bullets, and the hope that when the bullets are gone, he will no longer be standing, because he'll kill me long before I'm able to reload."

Dark red blood flowed from the demon's chest, and Chuck was horrified to hear the gun no longer spitting out bullets, and for a moment it was quiet save the electronic whir of the spinning chambers. The Greater Demon now tried to lift his arms with great effort, like its arms were as heavy as IBIS walker cannons. Chuck turned off the gun and watched with morbid fascination as the arm raised, raised, and raised a little more, coming ever closer to his doom...and then lowered, dropping. The Greater Demon dropped to its knees, staining the grass below it with blood. Its tentacles no longer shined with inner light, and now only reflected light like a glossy magazine in the setting sun. The Greater Demon then dropped face-first onto the ground, dead of exsanguination.

Chuck just stood for a moment. It was all so surreal. Him, of all people, getting enraged and facing down an avatar of death, and killing it right before it could kill him. He looked behind him, and where the disabled IBIS walker was still standing, and the other walkers were now finished reloading and had resumed firing at new waves of demons approaching.

Chuck dropped the minigun clumsily to the ground, and went back to the corpse of Jonathan. Around him, he could hear the groans of injured frontline troops, and realized that not everyone was dead, and there were some, like him, that had survived the attack. He opened Jonathan's vest pocket, and took out his harmonica. He then put it to his lips and blew. As loud as he could, he blew a high note, tapering down to three low notes. He did again, as loudly as he could, so all around could hear him. He then sang a cappella.

"This is why, why we fight, why we lie awake. This is why, this is why we fight."

From behind and to his right, came shakily "And when we die, we will die, with our arms unbound."

Chuck sang loudly, "This is why, this is why we fight. Come hell. Come hell."

The response had come from Private Kade, who was lying injured nearby. Chuck sang to him "So come to me, come to me now, lay your arms around me." He went to Kade, cleared the debris off him, and helped him up. Shakily, he responded "This is why, this is why we fight. Come hell."

Chuck used the harmonica and the song to walk around and collect the remains of the shattered platoon. Many were too injured to continue fighting. He found the body of Nathan Der Wales, and realized that the Sergeant was dead.

"What do we do now?" asked a soldier.

"Fall back," said Chuck. "There's a whole army behind us, and we're just the front line. Collect the wounded and get what guns and ammunition you can carry, and head south to the second line of defense."

No one complained about the advice Chuck gave, and did as he had suggested. It was now getting dark, and Chuck made his way back with the remains of his platoon to join a platoon further back. There, he defended the position for a few more hours as further attacks came, making heavy use of a new M27's night vision, as his own gun had been lost in the fray, but just before 8:00 PM fire ceased. The day had ended with Rio Verde firmly controlled by United States troops. The demons were always unrelenting, so the fact that they had stopped could only mean one thing - that every last Demon, Imp, and Greater demon in a 200 kilometer radius was dead. When it became Chuck's turn to cycle off frontline and get some shut eye, he wearily trudged back, his bruises still aching, took off his helmet, and slept on a knapsack by a rock.


	13. Chapter 13

The next three days saw preparations to move out. There were thousands of wounded to tended to, and some of the worse wounded were stabilized as best as possible and sent with a detachment back to Curitiba. Also, the damaged IBIS walker repaired as best as possible with the tools on hand, though what it really needed was to go back to the factory and be rebuilt almost from scratch. That wasn't possible, and a patched-up IBIS walker would be more use than none at all, and field repairs began on it. Chuck got information about the repairs secondhand. Basically, the right cannon of the poor IBIS walker was completely useless, and its coupling was detached. Its shield generator was broken, and that was discarded. Also, the armor cover for its chest had completely warped and broken off, and its chest-mounted machine guns were discarded as well. But, its legs were still fully functional, and its left cannon and was fully functional, even if without its right cannon it would not be counterbalanced and have reduced accuracy. So, some sheet metal was welded onto its chest to provide it protection from the weather, and thought it still could be destroyed with one more good hit from a void blast. Still, it was too important for fire support and would continue following the army behind the rest of the IBIS walkers to minimize its risk of destruction. Of the five other IBIS walkers, two others sustained moderate damage, but neither had any damage too serious and those were patched up as best as possible as well.

On July 16th Chuck marched out with his new platoon, this time under the command of Sergeant Albert Smith. He was a friendly Sergeant in his early 40s, with black hair, a clean-shaven face, blue eyes, and a slight tan. With such an exciting and nerve-wracking encounter with the Greater Demon it felt like such a thing would be the climax of the expedition, but Chuck Horner was reminded that there was still a very long way to go before they reached Borborema, and he had a long march as well to the next major objective, the city of Barreiras, 1,100 kilometers away. That was still 1,500 kilometers from Borborema, and one way or another it would be months before he ever saw the Gate to Hell. He checked on his map. At least so far he was about 3,400 kilometers from Cordoba, so actually, he was over halfway there. It made him feel a little better and put the long journey in perspective.

So, the army started off northeast, and avoided Brasilia, going north of the city. As they went north, the force encountered sporadic resistance, and had many little skirmishes with demons. But it was nothing the force couldn't handle, and there were no set piece battles. It despite the attacks, it was an uneventful trip. Private Kade was still alive, but he wasn't much of a talker, and they just had a professional working relationship. Without Jonathan Jones to talk to, Chuck Horner kept to himself much more and read more of _Deicide_. It was fitting that in the aftermath of the successful battle of Rio Verde, Chuck was also getting to the section in _Deicide_ about the changes in American fortunes and the times in the last decade where America began seeing gains in territory rather than repelling invasions or fleeing helplessly from an unstoppable onslaught.


	14. Chapter 14

In 1987 America began its counterstrike. For unknown reasons, and despite the huge populations under the control of Britain and Australia, there had never once been an incursion into Northeast Siberia. It was inconceivable that neither global juggernaut at least guessed there might be a base there. After all, the tanks destroyed at Khantayskoye Lake didn't just teleport there. But it is possible that they didn't guess the extent of the force growing there. So, in 1987, a massive force of heavy tanks, foot soldiers, and artillery staged a two pronged attack south. First, 30,000 infantry headed southwest and attacked Mirny and Lensk, while a main force of about 20,000 infantry and around 6,000 tanks and artillery went due south and took Aldan. The offensive was quick, as there were few regular enemy troops in the area, and it was obvious that the attack was unexpected. Japan's government had collapsed in 1978, right as Diablo was moving through Columbia to Panama, and while Australia controlled all of mainland east Asia, it had never bothered to invade the home islands of Japan, as even without large-scale coordination the island would be heavily defended and difficult to invade. US forces ignored Vladivostok on the way down, and made a beeline for China. There, they encountered a large force of Fanatics, which were easily killed. Next, from India came a long procession of Imps. They were easily killed as well, but it was obvious that Australia as well as Britain had some way to not only summon the denizens of Hell, but communicate and control them as well. The Imps that attacked the force were obviously guided, and didn't exhibit the kind of prehistoric mindset of the bands of invaders in South America. They were organized and bunched together in a large mass. However, in this case such organization was a detriment to them, as artillery easily killed large numbers of them, and the invading force wasn't seriously damaged.

West of Baotou the force met its first Angel face to face. Their blasts proved very effective against tanks, and the first Angel attacked an independent force of 200 heavy tanks sent to reinforce the main force, destroying about 50 of them. However, when the main force rallied, it attacked the first Angel, which was attacking without any support at all. Bullets pinged against the holy aura as tank shells and artillery hit the Angel over and over, and it was over relatively quickly. Against such a large, regular force using modern arms and armor, the Angel was overwhelmed and destroyed. South of Hami, the force encountered a second Angel, and while taking some casualties, killed it as well. Next, further west it encountered two Angels, which proved to be more of a challenge to kill, but in due time both were killed as well. US forces continued their invasion unmolested. They took Hami without much resistance, and the main infantry force attacked Ulaanbaatar. Here, Australia again used a nuclear ICBM, and this time the force was caught unaware. It hit just east of the city soon after it surrendered and the infantry was preparing to move out, killing 25,000 American infantry. A second bomb hit south of the city, but it must have been a miss, because there were no Americans in the area nor major cities, and in fact that area was mostly desert so there were only around 1000 civilian casualties.

Next, the force moved east, and met a force of four Angels southwest of Tselinograd. This was a more even match. The first Angel was killed without much trouble, but the other three were a match for the diminished force of Americans. Reinforcements streamed in as fast as they could to assist, and while the Angels proved to be immune to nerve agents, the artillery crews found that tear gas, once the heavenly aura was sufficiently weakened, affected the Angels just as they did any other living creature, and they were not able to attack as quickly and effectively as before once they were hit by tear gas. So, with forces rallied, and American luck getting better as the skies were not darkened with any more Australian nuclear bombs, which could have destroyed the entire force with one hit had they actually been launched, all four Angels were killed and Tselinograd surrendered without a fight. A few weeks later, a Greater Demon attacked, but was easily killed by the large force. A second attacked, and was severely injured and weakened, and retreated towards the Caspian Sea. The force followed, and north of Shevchenko had a second major battle. The injured demon turned and fought, and was easily killed, and the force began fighting three other Angels. They killed two before another two Angels arrived. The force killed one of the Angels, but another Angel joined, finally finishing off the large force. So, north of the Caspian Sea was now a graveyard of thousands of soldiers, three Angels, and one demon.

The Angel that had first been killed west of Baotou had been killed relatively cleanly, and its large corpse was taken to a top secret research facility south of Dmitry Laptev Strait. There, the body was studied. It was definitely humanoid, and had the same organs as a human, though obviously enlarged by its great size. Its skin in particular was studied closely, and notes compared with notes about the Greater Demon killed years ago near Cordoba. There was some sort of physics breakthrough that Chuck didn't understand that allowed scientists to finally understand the scientific forces behind the invisible shield protecting Angels and Greater Demons, and how, like physical matter, it did have a limit after which it could be broken, but how adding more energy to it as it weakened would allow it to strengthen again. Scientists got to work attempting to create a practical application for that knowledge.

Concurrent with the showdown at the Caspian Sea, Mexican commandos took out the Australian governor in Nain, and the city rebelled, becoming independent of any nation. Also, Australian planes flew to western Canada and dropped more Fanatics in the fifth and final invasion. Chuck Horner was 13 years old at the time, and his parents made preparations to evacuate, but that turned out to be unnecessary. A small contingent of foot soldiers stopped the force from attacking Fort Good Hope, but when the mob turned west to destroy production in Alaska, which had become the economic center of Mexico after Mexico proper was destroyed, they were powerless to help without leaving Fort Good Hope undefended, and the Fanatics attacked unhindered. Civilian defense forces did their best to stop the attack, and indeed were quite effective individually against the Fanatics, but the fanatic numbers easily absorbed such losses, and slowly destroyed all industry in Alaska.

Though the offensive at the Caspian Sea had been stopped, a tank incursion to invade south China and Vietnam was going smoothly. Heavy tanks took Hong Kong, Hanoi, and Mandalay before turning to the religious heartland of India. In India, they found huge numbers of churches near Bhopal, and large air bases near Hyderabad. When they came to the churches, at least one mystery was revealed. Inside the churches, when troops forced their way in and had a chance to get a good look at the training centers, it became possible to understand what would motivate a man armed with nothing but a club to attempt to attack something like an IBIS walker or Diablo himself. Inside were Bibles, modified and rewritten, with new chapters dedicated to the coming of Saint Justin, with descriptions obviously matching King Justin Gatewood, the King of Australia. The Bibles canonized him as the prophet of a New Earthly Trinity that included Saint John and Saint Maksimillian, obviously references to King John Redmond of Britain and the late King Maksimillian Balabanov of Russia. It said of how they would cooperate and compete for dominance of the world, and eventually win, such that one day every person in the world would have total and complete belief in God and the Devil and swear allegiance to one of the three saints. Tucked away in the basement of one of the great churches a soldier found an old version of the story, saying that all three saints were immortal and perfect, such that their decisions were wise beyond measure, and came from God himself. Newer versions of the bibles retroactively canonized the death of Saint Maksimillian and said that all three Saints, though touched by God, were still mortal and of the flesh, such as they had to eat and breathe and would eventually one day die and join their heavenly father. Once they did, they would form the New Earthly Trinity, and kingship would be passed to God himself, and God would descend from heaven, clean the Earth to make it into a paradise, and death would no longer be necessary as all devout would become immortal and filled with everlasting joy.

It was a nice story, but in another room the same soldiers found the darker side of it. The room was full of mind-altering drugs in atomizers. When samples were shipped to northeast Siberia, along with a few of the bibles and other curious items the invading soldiers had found, it was found to be a new kind of drug, one that charged up a person and made them restless and energetic, like Amphetamine, but also very susceptible to suggestion, like Sodium thiopental. Indeed, the metabolized byproducts of the drugs were found in the corpses of Fanatics that attacked the IBIS walker in Alabama in 1976, but this was the first time the pure drug had been captured and analyzed.

There were few anti-air systems with the invading tank force, and commanders feared that the airports would launch helicopters to attack, which would be very difficult to defend against. Instead, what happened next made no sense at the time, but at least made some sense in retrospect. A missile launch from Australia was detected and course calculation found it was headed for Bhopal. Tanks retreated to the minimum safe distance of most tactical nuclear weapons, and then kept driving, as there was no indication of what yield the missile was carrying and radar indicated it was slightly larger than usual. It detonated high above Bhopal, not with the 60 kiloton detonation that the infantry at Ulaanbaatar had to endure, but detonated with a force of approximately 300 megatons. The entire tank force was destroyed, as was Bhopal. For 100 kilometers in all directions destruction was complete, and there was barely a tree stump left. Beyond that, heat and wind caused terrible damage, and windows were shattered and fires started all the way in Surat. Billows of radioactive fallout rained down on the rest of India, such that though the initial destruction was more horrible than any other bomb in the history of the world, the fallout bathed about 50% of India in dangerous amounts of radiation, effectively destroying the entire country with a single bomb. And it was not a large enough bomb for such power to come from nuclear fission or fusion. Scientists at first guessed antimatter, but the size and effects were not consistent with a hypothetical antimatter explosion, and while positrons had been long since known about, a single full molecule of antimatter had never been made by US scientists, and they doubted that the Australians, even with their great resources, had found some way to create and store the volatile, largely hypothetical substance. Instead, as research continued into study of the Angel corpse, scientists realized that the energy was the result of a new interatomic force they never even theorized before. The same force that let Angels deflect matter away with no matter of their own could allow huge amounts of previously untapped energy to be converted to photons, in effect not converting matter to energy, like fission, fusion, and antimatter did, but more accurately, converting nothing, or more accurately still, space itself into energy. Mere weeks after the detonation, scientists finally unraveled the mysteries of a stable energy matrix.


	15. Chapter 15

So it was that that a little under two months after setting out from Rio Verde, the force was within sight of Barreiras. The mayor of Barreiras road out on horseback to meet the force, and plead that they go around the city or turn back, or do something so as not to incur the wrath of demons, as any cities captured by demons, liberated, and then recaptured had to endure. But this time the general was adamant that the force go straight for Barreiras, a large city still intact despite the bands of demons around it. As the force approached the city, demonic resistance increased, but again it was nothing they couldn't handle, and there were few casualties.

Just outside the outskirts of Barreiras, the platoon met an old man, who stood in the distance and shouted at Chuck and his comrades.

"Vá embora! Deixe! O sentimento de impotência é o seu melhor amigo!" he said.

They kept coming and he repeated those three things, changing only their order. As they approached, he seemed to get more and more heated.

"Ignore him and keep walking," said Sergeant Albert Smith, and Chuck did as he was told.

The old man grew enraged. He picked up a glass bottle by the side of the road, smashed it open with a rock, and swung it in the direction of the group violently.

"Whoa," said Sergeant Smith. "Halt. Does anyone here know Portuguese?"

"I do," said Private Kade.

"Tell him we are friends and liberators," said Sergeant Smith.

Private Kade approached the old man like a cowboy approaching a startled horse.

"Calma, companheiro. Chegamos a sua cidade como amigos e libertadores," said Kade.

"Meu sentimento de desamparo é o meu único amigo," responded the man.

"Deixe-nos passar, veterano. Nós temos armas, e não será interrompido," said Kade.

"Devo parar. Você traz apenas destruição," the man responded.

"Largue a garrafa," said Kade.

"Não," said the man resolutely. Chuck Horner didn't understand Portuguese, but it was obvious that the man was obstinate.

"Largue a garrafa!" repeated Kade more forcefully.

"Nunca!" shouted the man.

Kade turned toward Sergeant Smith. "He won't drop the bottle, sir."

"Disarm him," said Sergeant Smith.

Kade was a rather large man, and he let his machine gun down and let it dangle on its strap behind him so he had both hands free. He grabbed at the old man, and the old man lunged, poking Kade in the chest. The sharp bottle connected with Kade's chest, doing no damage to the durable, flexible fabric protecting Kade. Kade karate chopped the bottle out of the old man's hand and it clattered on the stones in the dirt. The man made a fist to strike Kade, but Chuck came and grabbed the man, and Private Isaac Knowles assisted and restrained the man as well.

"Você traz apenas destruição," said the man again.

"Take him to the military police," said Sergeant Smith, and Chuck, Isaac, and Kade took the old man to the back where the military police could restrain him and prevent him from harming anyone. Then all three jogged back to rejoin the march and entered the city.

Barreiras was a city that had certainly seen better days. To be sure, it wasn't the moon-like desolation remaining where most American cities stood, or the wholly abandoned towns and cities that the army had walked through many times before. But it was a city in decay and decline. Chuck busied himself counting broken windows, and found that there was only maybe one house out of 15 that didn't have some form of major damage done to it. Barreiras used to be a city of about 100,000 people. It was still inhabited, and Brazilians peered out at the army from doorways and windows, but Chuck guessed it must now have a population close to 20,000.

Chuck walked close to Sergeant Smith.

"So, what's the deal? What are we doing in this city when we've bypassed so many others before?"

"Supply base," said Sergeant Smith. "We have the logistics to get the rest of the way to Borborema, but we're now about 2,300 kilometers from Curitiba. Everything for the whole journey needed to be packed, since sending more shipments once we got too far from the clusters of Tesla towers would be too risky. In short, taking this city is about having enough supplies to get back again. We can make it to Borborema with all the supplies we're carrying and shipping, but unless we want it to be a one way trip, or God forbid, see half of the army die, freeing up supplies for the other half, Barreiras is our ticket home. In addition, sometimes groups of bandits will join the demons to defend a city that we want to liberate, in hopes of driving us off. If we capture the city and capture any potential bandits, we won't have to worry about being attacked from the rear by misguided rebels."

Chuck nodded. "How long are we staying here?"

"About five days," said Sergeant Smith. "We'll make a defensive line north, northeast, and east of the city, get things settled here, and then move out. In the meantime, there are plenty of abandoned houses to sleep in and citizens we might persuade to help us, so for a few days a lot of people might not have to sleep in tents for a while."

Chuck nodded again. "Thanks for the heads up," he said.

"No problem," said Sergeant Smith. "That's at least one nice thing about fighting inhuman demons. You really don't have to worry about spies. Not exactly because we can't understand each other, mind you, but since they're so primitive in the art of war, even if demons knew our plans they don't really have a tendency for the advanced combat maneuvers required to take advantage of those plans."

Chuck had never really thought of that. He was reminded of his conversation months before with Jonathan Jones about how humans were dynamic and the demons were stagnant and eternal. He missed Jonathan, and wished he was here. Chuck thanked Albert Smith and resumed counting broken windows.


	16. Chapter 16

With plenty of abandoned, decaying homes for the army to stay in, it was with great luck that Chuck's squad happened to be allowed to stay in a mansion near the edge of the city, which was still inhabited. Further its single inhabitant, Josephina Menendez, was kind enough to promise to cook for the soldiers if she was allowed to stay in the house, and she was allowed to stay. She was a 30 year old Latino woman with black hair and brown eyes. In the evening, Josephina cooked quesadillas for Chuck's squad, and while she was cooking Chuck busied himself chatting with her and finally learning something about what life was like for the surrendered. She was trilingual, and spoke English, Spanish, and Portuguese, and he conversed with her easily.

"You know, outside of the city we were attacked by an old man who seemed hellbent on not letting us into the city," said Chuck.

"It doesn't surprise me," said Josephina as she sizzled beef in a pan. "You of course know the old saying by Samual Acuna. If there was anyone left in the city that had true courage and loyalty to their nation, they would have been killed in the initial demon attacks. Plus, previous times when you Americans tried to break out from the southern tip, any cities you liberated would be the subject of terribly retribution when they were captured again by demons. So, I understand why the old man acted like he did."

"You're not going to do that, are you? Try to kill us somehow in hopes of getting more mercy from demons?"

Josephina shook her head. "If the demons return, I'm dead anyway. It is only through great luck I haven't been killed already. My brother was killed by demons in 1986, and I'm sure I would as well if I drew any attention. I'm a devout Catholic, and though I hide it as best as I can whenever I am near demons, they can read feelings. I can only thank God they cannot read minds or hearts, because if they knew what truthful feelings I had for them in my heart, they would do terrible things for me."

"What's it like living in a city dominated by demons?" asked Chuck.

Josephina turned her attention away from her cooking for a moment, and regarded Chuck Horner carefully, either trying to think of how to tailor her response, or trying to remember English words for what she was thinking. After a moment she spoke.

"It's a life of...economic stagnation," she said finally.

Chuck was doubly surprised. First, he didn't know her English was that good. He'd heard superior officers with worse English skills than she possessed. Second, he was surprised by the choice of words, and thought she would say something sappy like that it was a life of "despair" or "fear" or "sorrow."

"Economic stagnation?" repeated Chuck. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Look around you," she said. Chuck did. He had given a cursory look around when he first got to the mansion, but at her cue he now really looked at the kitchen. It was as modern looking as could be expected, and looked like it was probably built in the 1930s or thereabouts. There were incandescent light bulbs in most of the sockets, and switches on the walls still, but there was no electricity going to the house, and there were unlit lamps and candles, as this was late afternoon and light still streamed through the windows.

"Do you have any electrical appliances?" asked Chuck. Josephina pointed to a cabinet, and when Chuck opened it, he found it contained a small assortment of cooking appliances from the 1960s. They weren't dusty, but one or two were rusty and it was obvious they hadn't been used in years.

"When was the last time you had electricity?" asked Chuck.

Josephina paused a moment, then said "I don't quite remember, but I think it was a year or two after the Gate to Hell opened. I don't even know why I still keep those. Memories, I suppose."

"So, you live in economic stagnation without electricity?" asked Chuck. He knew that wasn't exactly what she meant, but asked so she would clarify more.

"It's not just that," she said. "If it was just the trouble with generating and delivering electricity, we could still live pleasantly like it was the 1800s. But you'll also notice that I can't burn with coal, and have to use wood. By economic stagnation, I mean that it's not possible to have any industry at all in in Barreiras. Traveling in general is dangerous, and especially dangerous to travel outside the city. Every encounter with a demon means first demonstrating your helplessness, and then also hoping that they either aren't hungry for human flesh, or that you've packed enough food to satisfy them. So, practically speaking, we can't import anything, and can't export anything. We're not quite trapped in Barreiras exactly, but going anywhere outside the city is so dangerous we might as well be. So, no major businesses can run. Nothing can be mined, nor can coins be minted or governments run. I currently live like it is 1700, tending my cattle and repairing what breaks as best as I can, but nothing can really be replaced. As time goes on, life in Barreiras has degraded greatly, and would continue degrading until anyone left will live like a caveman. Civilization needs peace and security to prosper. To live in Barreiras is to survive, if you feel helpless enough, but demon harassment simply means we will all die slowly, and if we were not relieved, one day there would be no tools left in the city aside from sticks and stones."

Chuck Horner ruminated on what she said for a moment. The meat was almost done, and it would be dinner time soon."

"What do the demons eat?" he asked.

"Meat and fungus," she said. "For meat, they don't care what kind at all. Whether it's fish, birds, cattle, or people, they will eat any kind of meat. And for fungus, they seem to enjoy the kinds of mushrooms poisonous to humans, and there are many people in Barreiras that simply tend almost exclusively to large fields of mushrooms to satiate hungry demons so they do not hunger for human flesh. I'm just glad they do eat like snakes - eating large quantities at one time, and then not eating at all for a long time afterwards. Anyway, the steak's done."

Josephina called in the rest of the squad, and they busied themselves making steak quesadillas. When they were sitting down to eat, Isaac asked Josephina if she'd heard much world news in the last few years.

"No," she responded. "I do have a radio upstairs, but all my batteries died many years ago. It is just as well. Last time I used it, I picked up nothing but static. Also, we don't get many visitors from other cities or towns, so I'm kind of in the dark for world news for the last decade or so."

"Oh, then do you know the news about King John Redmond and King Justin Gatewood?" asked Chuck.

"No. What new disasters have they caused for the world?"

"Plenty, but they at least can't cause any more. They're dead."

Josephina just said "Hmm." She then continued "I would say I hope they meet Diablo in hell, but as he still walks the Earth, perhaps their stays in Hell will not be torturous enough."

"Actually, Diablo's dead."

Josephina dropped her quesadilla on her plate in shock. She raised her arm to make a sign of the cross, but then must have remembered she was in the company of Protestants, and dropped her arm.

"He's dead? How is such a thing possible?"

"Actually, I brought a book on the subject."

Chuck dropped his half-eaten quesadilla, wiped his hands on a napkin, and went to his backpack. He took out _Deicide_, which had a bookmark in it marking that it was almost finished.

"I'm almost done with it, and as luck would have it, I'm right at the part about the death of Diablo. Let me read you the end of the book."

Chuck began reading out loud, and the side conversations died down at the table as his fellow soldiers listened in to him reading of the death of Diablo.


	17. Chapter 17

None were more miffed by King Justin Gatewood's apparent insanity than the Indian people themselves. After the detonation, a revolt started in New Delhi to make the city independent of the Kingdom of Australia. Almost as if to confirm the notion that he was going insane, King Justin ordered a tactical nuke on the city of New Delhi. As counterproductive as it was to use a nuclear missile against a city revolting to protest the use of atomic bombs, admittedly the survivors of the 60 kiloton blast had no desire to continue the revolt.

As expected, with the defeat by the Caspian Lake, more British Angels and Fanatics arrived to roll back American holdings in central Asia. Near Hami, China, a new force of infantry and heavy tanks engaged a force of Fanatics, but this time they were evenly matched, and the US forces barely won. The survivors were destroyed by an incoming force of seven Angels making its way through Asia. Australian Fanatics had landed at Hong Kong and were working to destroy American defenses there, when in 1989, suddenly King Justin was assassinated. On October 15th, 1989 Justin Gatewood was taking in a Sunday sermon at a megachurch in Canberra, Australia, as he had been doing every Sunday for years. He always sat with the general population, as he didn't like being secluded in his own pew, but sat with two bodyguards. An Indian man, later learned to be named Tarak Kotadia, was scooching by in the pew behind him, excusing himself, and appeared to be headed for the bathroom. Suddenly, he stopped behind Mr. Gatewood, and with speed usually only seen in a Western movie, took out a revolver from his pants pocket and shot King Justin in the back of the head once. He then shot Justin's right hand bodyguard in the face as well, and was about to shoot his left bodyguard, but his left bodyguard had already taken out his automatic pistol by that time and shot Tarak once in the chest. Tarak fell down onto a bystander sitting behind King Justin, bleeding on the poor screaming woman. A woman to the right asked the young Indian "Why? Why have you killed our God-King?" Tarak seemed to not hear her, and addressed his last words to the corpse of King Justin, and said to him "You have become death, destroyer of worlds. May the Gate to Hell swing both ways, and welcome a fellow demon." He then died, and the church was evacuated to carry out the three dead bodies and clean up the blood.

As with King Maksimillian, there was no smooth succession, like there were when American leaders died in office. Instead, his death caused a succession crisis. The new Bible said that King Justin was supposed to eventually die, but not before everyone in the world swore fealty toward him or King John and believed in God and the Devil. Indeed, Diablo was still wandering around South America, seemly aimlessly, but as for swearing fealty, his death could not have come at a worse time. Less than a year before he had unleashed a powerful bomb on India, killing millions, and again bombed protesters. Neither were the actions of a sane, just, perfect King, and few people believed any longer that he was a member of the New Earthly Trinity. King John Redmond made a mass plea for the subjects of Australia to swear fealty toward him, the last surviving member of the New Earthly Trinity. Many wanted to take him up on the offer. However, now was the time for America's own propaganda offensive. Spies in the Middle East had been watching the area for years, and recorded instances of gruesome human sacrifice that were required to summon Greater Demons into the world without the Gate to Hell. Greater Demons were gathering in Iraq, and almost exactly at the same time that King Justin died, they had pictures of a new temple that had been made in Cairo. Through careful human intelligence, it was revealed that the purpose of it was to summon something big and unstoppable, like Diablo himself, into our world. Though such information would normally be hushed, it suited America to broadcast that information far and wide. With radio, television, pamphlets, and printed works, Americans beseeched Australians and previous subjects of Australia not to join with King John, whose rule would lead to Earth's doom, but to join with America and Mexico to stop the creation of the humanoids, be they Angels, demons, or worse. The Australian people at large wanted neither to join with the cruel King that had opened the Gate to Hell at Borborema or join the weak Americans and Mexicans, global refugees who all figured would one way or another meet their total destruction soon. In addition, Mexicans had succeeded in taking over England. King John was so focused on religion that he had Angels and Fanatics and little else in his army, so Britain proper wasn't heavily defended. Angels were just across the English Channel, and would only need a barge to get to the other side and retake Britain. But Mexicans built artillery positions and Tesla towers, so by the time a barge could be prepared, Great Britain was too defended to try. There was a revolt against Mexican rule almost immediately, and rebels even commandeered tanks from a motor pool. But they were put down with the Tesla towers and Mexican helicopters, ensuring Mexico's dominance over Great Britain even as nearly half of the world's population was under the control of the British Empire. With the large and unruly London under Mexican control, the Mexican government finally reorganized, and switched to a confederacy government. Revolts in London subsided and turned to jubilation, as the confederacy guaranteed freedoms that those in London had not enjoyed in decades. So, as Australian Fanatics finished their attacks on Hong Kong and Fairbanks independent of any central instruction to continue, and Balkanization, that bane to global unity since 1945, reared its ugly head once more, and the Kingdom of Australia broke up into one united but independent country on the Australian continent, a second independent country in Southeast Asia, and 16 independent nations or city-states, many of them islands.

British Angels largely turned around and headed for Cairo after King Justin's death, leaving just two Angels to try to control Asia. In Angola, there were reports of attacks by Diablo in 1990. Ever since destroying New York City, he had been doing nothing but what could best be termed as "wandering." Concurrent with the destruction of India, Diablo had gone south enough that he attacked Salta and destroyed a battery of Tesla coils there (which were later rebuilt), and could have probably gone to Tierra del Fuego if he wanted to, as America had 6 second-generation walkers there that would have probably not been effective against Diablo, but instead he turned north and continued wandering. He went up to Borborema, and then, soon after the death of King Justin, waded into the Atlantic Ocean, creating jets of steam as he did. Diablo had waded through streams, walked through lakes, and even gone out to the ocean as far as the continental shelf before. But now, he waded until his feet no longer touched the ground, and to the relief of everyone still alive on the American continent and the horror of everyone else, started swimming. Diablo had always been easy to track, as he looked like a storm system on weather maps. In 1990, at the port city of Luanda in Angola, demons Diablo had summoned in the shallow water off the coast made landfall and attacked the city. Samual Acuna's words rung true even now, as the denizens of Luanda surrendered en masse to the Demons and Imps, and were spared total destruction. Moçâmedes was similarly spared death, but Diablo attacked Kinshasa alone, destroying the city. Thus, the demonic invasion of Africa began. Parties of demons headed south to attack African cities, while Diablo went north to the rainforests in the Congo. King John sent demons south to counter the demons not under his control, but most were killed by Diablo when they passed too close, and the rest were killed by parties of nonaligned demons in Zambia. In central Africa, Diablo met one of the Angels, and engaged it in combat. The Angel sent blasts of energy at Diablo, but it turned out to be repeat of the showdown in Texas years before, and the solitary Angel was killed by Diablo, with Diablo no worse for the wear. Diablo continued north, causing an ecological disaster as he went, as his presence burned the rainforest and left the African rainforest looking similar to the Sahara.

In Cameroon, proper resistance finally met the Devil for the first time in 14 years, and in 1991 he met a full force of Fanatics, Demons, and tanks. The tanks he destroyed, but that allowed the rest of the force to get close enough to engage, and at Lagdo, Cameroon, just west of Lake Lagdo, a climactic battle took place. 12 Angels and 1 Greater Demon began attacking Diablo, and for the first time since he stepped foot on Earth, he had an actual challenge to contend with. They got into a semi-circle and began trading fire with Diablo. It was a long battle, and evenly matched, but it looked like Diablo would come out alive. But after he had killed 8 of the Angels and the one Greater Demon controlled by King John, an additional 12 Angels joined the fight. Diablo could not sustain such blasts, and disappeared in a dazzling blaze of light, leaving no corpse. 14 Angels survived the fight.

Just before Diablo died, in Cairo a new creature appeared, referred to as Pharol the Black. He was a huge creature, slightly taller than Diablo, with a centaur-like body devoid of hair. He had burning eyes, black skin, naturally, and a massive head that was nonetheless disproportionately small compared to the rest of his body, with both a humanoid jaw and two secondary jawbones with tusk-like teeth sticking out of them, giving him a hideous, monstrous appearance. He had two humanoid arms that ended in only three fingers, but walked around on strangely knobby legs which appeared to have two knees per leg, and rather than ending in hooves or feet, they tapered off to the ground, such that he appeared to be walking with daggers for feet. He engaged four Angels immediately and killed all four with balls of fire similar to Diablo's, but burning with a black flame and apparently much more powerful. For what purpose he was summoned, one can only guess, as immediately after his appearance King John Redmond sent nine of the Angels that had fought Diablo to go north, past the new British capital in Zouar, Chad to fight Pharol. They engaged, but after four more Angels were killed, they retreated west to Libya. Four made it, and were then immediately turned back to fight, which of course killed them. Next, a huge force of Fanatics that had gathered near Zouar went north to fight Pharol. Like Diablo, however, he had an aura that damaged everything around him. However, it was not the hellfire that followed Diablo everywhere he went. Rather, all who got close to Pharol became suddenly and violently sick, and if they didn't get as far away from him as possible, would quickly die. Those that got close exhibited symptoms similar to radiation poisoning, but if they could get away fast enough, they could make a full recovery and have no long-term, lasting damage. The Fanatics, however, showed their characteristic drugged-up zealotry, and ran straight towards the evil humanoid. Not a single one got close enough to so much as touch the evil creature, and soon after finished burning Cairo to the ground and started heading north across the Mediterranean towards Greece.

Now, in November 16, 1991 King John Redmond of Britain took his own life. He was found almost immediately after he did it in his bedroom in Zouar, with a pistol in his hand, a bullet in his brain, and a note with two words on it: "Doomed Earth". At the time, the Kingdom of Britain controlled 45% of the world's population, the United States of America had 11% of the world's population, and Mexico still controlled 5% of the world's population, which really meant just the cities that the USA was protecting in South America, a few settlements in the Queen Elizabeth Islands, Great Britain and Ireland, and Scandinavia, which it had recently snatched up. As with Australia before, rather than join with any of the few world powers left, the previous subjects of the British Empire Balkanized, splitting up into separate nations and city-states. America sent envoys to all of them, and though the new states couldn't agree on many things, they could all agree on two things. First, they didn't want to join America. They thought it was in general weak and oblivious, and British subjects had been told all their lives not to give any information to a foreigner. So, no new state would join with the USA willingly. Second, however, none of the new states expressed any malice towards the United States of America. The general consensus of the British subjects everywhere was that they were sorry for America at large, and horrified that at the time everywhere north of Paraguay and south of Texas was now swarming with demons, with isolated pockets of them roaming as far north as the ruins of Fort Smith. So, by 1992 America was not at war with any humans in the world, for what that was worth, meaning it could finally, for the first time in 20 years finally put its full resources and attention towards the supernatural threats to the world.

Chuck closed the book and there was silence for a moment. Finally, Josephina spoke.

"If Diablo is well and truly dead, then why is there still evil in the world?"

Chuck was about to respond "Because Diablo is not the cause of evil in the world," but he too remembered the company he was keeping, and closed his mouth and shrugged.

"I can't believe it," said Josephina. "El Diablo. The Devil himself no longer walks the earth, and yet evil and sin persists. Perhaps he not dead in the sense that he will no longer trouble the living. Perhaps he is dead now in that he no longer has a physical body on Earth, and his black soul has returned to Hell to continue his eternal rule."

Chuck listened to the ad hoc explanation, blinking but silent. He was astounded by the unfailing capacity of Josephina and mankind in general to believe what they preferred to be true rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible. However, with metaphysical forces operating in the world beyond his understanding, he couldn't entirely discount the possibility the explanation Josephina had come up with was actually correct. So, he shrugged again.

"I'm not sure. I'm a soldier, not a priest," he said.

Josephina frowned. "Our priest was one of the first people killed. I was only about 10 at the time, but I remember him. He was a nice man. Very kind, especially to the elderly. I haven't seen a priest since then."

Chuck Horner went silent for a time, as did most of the table, and when conversation resumed the topics were just chitchat among people at the table.

Chuck Horner passed five days in Barreiras, resting his feet and enjoying the comfort of sleeping in a real bed rather than a tent and sleeping bag. On August 16th, when it was time to leave, he gave _Deicide_ to Josephina, since he was finished with the book and she had been cut off from the larger world for so long. She thanked him and waved goodbye.

The day after his squad moved out, he learned there had been a skirmish north of Barreiras with another Greater Demon, and there were around 2,000 wounded and 500 killed in the attack. Noteworthy was that he heard some of the soldiers were hiding in houses, hoping that it would give them some protection, but the opposite turned out to be true. While Greater Demon void blasts were powerful enough as it was in the open air, when they crashed into a house and exploded within, the entire house would be blown to smithereens, killing anyone within and injuring anyone close enough to get hit by a piece of the house.


	18. Chapter 18

The last leg of the journey was in many ways the opposite of the first leg. While the first journey from Cordoba to Curitiba was a journey through a land of economic and ecological recovery, the 1,500 kilometer journey from Barreiras to Borborema was a long slog through a desolate land in progressively worse states of ecological collapse. Further, though there was no major set piece engagement like the showdown at Rio Verde, harassment by demons increased to the point that even a few days could not pass without some kind of demon harassment. The IBIS walkers largely kept the small bands at bay, but when larger bands attacked, everyone had to be mustered at all hours of the night to repel the attacks, a few of which did break through long enough to inflict losses.

Chuck was reminded of what he told Jonathan many months ago, that the Oregon Trail was 3,000 kilometers long, and thought of how this last leg would be like walking the Oregon Trail halfway. He missed Jonathan, and though he made good acquaintances among his fellow soldiers, he didn't form the same deep friendship he had formed with Jonathan.

Also, for the last leg of the journey he didn't have any book to read before lights out, and in the times when there weren't demon attacks, felt boredom worse than he had felt the entire journey. Still, he could at least reflect on the memories of what he had read and learned from the first three history books. As for history more recently, he didn't need any book to learn about it. Chuck was 16 years old when King John Redmond of Britain took his own life, and knew by heart what happened in the world in the last few years just by reading the newspapers, listening to the radio, and watching television.

Pharol the Black had quickly moved up through Germany to the religious heartland of the British Empire, but turned towards the English Channel. He easily forded it, destroyed the Mexican defenses with a flick of his wrists, and began his destruction of Great Britain, now under Mexican control, and started a mass exodus from that country. When he was done with that, he destroyed the cities in southern Norway and Sweden, bypassing Denmark entirely, and then went back to Britain and across the Atlantic to Iceland. Last Chuck had checked Pharol was in the Atlantic, somewhere between Iceland and Greenland. But with Pharol the Black half a world away, the more pressing concern was to finish what America had tried to do in 1979 - attack the Gate to Hell and find some way to finally close it.

America poured money into research. Money for upgrades to weapon and armor had for years gone to making more of the same, and America was still using many of the same weapons in 1992 as it was using in 1965. Researchers came up with the new weapons and armor stocking the armories in Cordoba, and turned towards finding other ways to improve and give their soldiers an edge. Its scientists working at Dmitry Laptev Strait finally found a mechanical way to create the same kind of shields that the Greater Demons and Angels used. However, as with many first-generation technologies, it was bulky and had limited effectiveness. As such, it could only practically be added to the IBIS walkers, and when it did, it meant that it could only really stop one or two blasts from a Greater Demon, and the IBIS walker's armor would still be much more effective. However, a single lucky blast from a Greater Demon could damage an essential component of an IBIS walker, so even so the rudimentary shield a useful upgrade. For what it was worth, the moon bases had grown rather nicely in the last decade, and with such widespread death, destruction, and starvation on Earth, now 5% of the American population lived on the moon. That number would have probably been much larger of more resources had been spent on more and larger moon bases, but the purpose of those moon bases weren't to leave Earth to its doom, but just to ensure that if worse came to worse, humanity would still have someplace it could survive in safety. Thus, great amounts of resources were never spent on the moon bases.

With no further organized enemies, America resumed its invasion in Asia, finally taking Vladivostok and attacking and killing the two Angels still stationed in Mongolia to protect all of Asia. Meanwhile, the great Mexican battleship _Manuel Azueta_ took a spiteful tour of death all along Africa, attacking and ruining every port city along the southern coast of Africa, even as they now posed no organized threat to Mexico.

It was here that world history intersected with personal history. On February 8th, 1993 Chuck got a letter in the mail at his house in Fort Good Hope, with information on the mandatory registration for the selective services. When he showed his Mom and Dad the letter, they were silent for a moment. All three of them knew that this day would come, and also knew that Chuck was dreading the day, but had little chance of not being picked for service. Chuck had always had an academic fascination with war, but that didn't translate into a personal willingness to join any armed forces. Chuck's father implored him to willingly joining some branch of the United States Armed Forces so that at least he could have more say in what role he got, and maybe get a signing bonus. Besides, if he willingly joined, he had a better chance of getting a support position rather than a frontline position. But, Chuck was adamant, and while he dutifully filled out the selective service form, he took no action to willingly join the armed forces. The slight chance that he would be passed over and allowed to go to college or join the workforce rather than fight was better than no chance at all, he figured.

Within only a few weeks after sending out the form, he got a letter back saying that he was drafted into the United States Army, with instructions on where to go and what to do. When he showed his Dad that letter, his Dad just signed, and mercifully didn't say "I told you so," though Chuck knew he was thinking it. Chuck was, after all, a white Anglo-Saxon from a Protestant family, of an average height, with good vision and hearing, no ailments, and in good standing at school. It was almost a foregone conclusion that the United States Army would want him. So, he packed his bags, and shipped out first to Yellowknife for basic training. There, he met Jonathan Jones in basic training, and the two hit it off right away, and became good friends.

When basic training was done, the new soldiers took planes from Fort Good Hope to Cordoba and did advanced training, and then passed the remaining months with leave, war games, and further training while preparations were finalized for the third incursion north. And thus, Chuck's musings on the history of the world came full circle.

As the army passed the ruins of Arara, the terrain began to change. Chuck noticed that there were no green trees, and the trees he did see were all dead. Also, the grass was not growing tall, and what little plants he saw on the ground didn't grow higher than 10 centimeters. He walked next to Sergeant Albert Smith and asked him about it.

"Sir, I know this area was nuked three times 1976. Do you know how much radiation is left over?"

"I just had that tested an hour ago. Currently it's around 1 millisievert per hour, expected to go up to around 5 millisievert per hour. Meaning, it'll only really do anyone harm if they stay here for months at a time, or grow food in the soil and eat it. If the first force in 1979 actually succeeded in getting to this place, they would have had more trouble with radiation. But eighteen years is a long time, and nuclear radiation isn't that persistent. Plus, all three bombs were in the kiloton range anyway."

"Thank you sir."

"No problem."


	19. Chapter 19

After only a few more days of marching, and Chuck Horner was finally there. On September 17th, 1994 he finally arrived at Latitude -6.80, Longitude -35.62. Borborema, a town and municipality in the state of Sao Paulo so small and insignificant, you needed a map with a scale of 1 cm to 1 km before it started to be listed on maps. The town was about 15 kilometers from the more important town of Bananeiras, 10 kilometers even as the crow flies. The mine was a few kilometers south of Lake Açude Canafístula II, and used to be an iron mine before demons commandeered it in 1975. Had the demons been humans, they likely would have concentrated en masse around the location to protect it, but as they were not, the army only encountered he usual small bands of demons that it had been used to since the victory at Rio Verde. It was equally impossible that the demons were scared as it was impossible that every living demon that had come from the gate since 1975 was killed already, but perhaps they had concentrated somewhere else. Looking around, Chuck couldn't blame them. There was barely a weed growing anywhere, and he stepped over bare dirt, glad that it hadn't rained in a few days so he wasn't sloshing through mud. The army set up a defensive perimeter while plans were drawn up for the next action. Losses on the journey so far had been heavy. Though seven IBIS walkers and 43 thousand soldiers had started the trip, now finally at Borborema there were 21 thousand soldiers and six IBIS walkers, two of which had suffered moderate damage in the journey. The lion's share of the casualties had come in the climactic battle of Rio Verde, but the rest had been the result of attrition.

A day after arriving at the gate, he learned it was command's decision to first send a battalion into the opening for reconnaissance-in-force, to find out how deep the mine now went and what exactly was underground. Chuck's battalion was selected, and his platoon was on point. So, in the early morning he prepared to go down the mine and see the gate himself. There were large piles of dirt around the underground entrance, and it was obvious that demons had excavated it greatly since first arriving on the scene. The primary entrance would have been large enough to drive a truck in and out of back in 1975, but had been massively excavated to allow Diablo to exit through the mine, and was now large enough to allow two or three IBIS walkers to enter the mine shoulder to shoulder. Chuck wondered why then the planners wouldn't send an IBIS walker in first, but then quickly realized the reasons. First, the IBIS walkers, despite their lack of pilots, were very much not expendable, and were the very lynchpin of the incursion. If one were ambushed within the mine, it would have very little room to maneuver and would likely be overwhelmed and destroyed, jeopardizing the entire operation. Second, a force of 500 soldiers out of more than 20,000 was expendable, so if something happened to them there would be plenty more left to take their place. It was a sobering thought, but Chuck was glad he at least understood the decision and it made sense.

Chuck's platoon was at the mine entrance, preparing for battle. Demons emerged from the Gate to Hell at irregular intervals, such that there was no telling whether they would encounter any fresh demons coming from the gate. They would not be taking their heavy backpacks in with them, and everyone was carrying as much ammunition as feasible, and what tools would be useful underground. Chuck made sure he had his entrenching tool, several flares, and that the flashlight attachment under his gun had fresh batteries. The night vision attachment would be cumbersome and unwieldy at such short ranges as an attack could be expected, and was only really useful for the nighttime skirmishes the army often had with demons in the field. So, he didn't attach it to his gun, and no one else in his platoon did either.

He was about to put his dagger in his sheath when Private Kade noticed.

"You won't have use for your knife," he said. "Demons are pretty much impossible to kill with just a dagger."

Chuck thought for a moment, and then put it in his sheath anyway.

"You're probably right. But if worse comes to worst, I'd like to have something better than my fists and the butt of my gun."

Kade shrugged. "Suit yourself."


	20. Chapter 20

It was 10:00 AM local time when the battalion entered the mine. Chuck noticed that the ground was scorched brick, wetted near the entrance by weather but becoming dry soon into the mine. He imagined what terrible heat the dirt in the area had experienced, first by the nuclear weapons directed at it, and later by the direct heat of Diablo. A little inside the mine natural light from the entrance stopped illuminating, and the only illumination was from the many underslung flashlights of the battalion of soldiers. They walked slowly, quietly, and cautiously, guns loaded and set to automatic. There were obviously no snipers among them, and almost all carried with M27 in normal configuration, with just a few carrying the gun modified as a squad automatic weapon. There were also just two three-man minigun squads, and Chuck imagined that was because it would take a long time to set up a minigun and such a weapon would be impractical here. The mine didn't really go as deep as Chuck had assumed. Chuck thought that perhaps it would go all the way to bedrock and perhaps further, but really the mine was surprisingly shallow. It twisted and turned and even had a U-turn, such that Chuck realized though they had started off going west at the entrance, they were now probably going east, though ferrous deposits would play tricks with a compass if anyone bothered to check one here. After about ten minutes of walking, the tunnel made a 60 degree turn, and humans for the first time laid their eyes on the gate to hell.

It was a massive gate, as expected, and plenty tall enough for Diablo to walk out of. On an otherwise solid wall of rock was an area that shimmered and shifted with blue light. It was in the shape of a large triangle with two smaller triangles jutting out the top of it, and it looked like an upside down 5-pointed star with the bottom point cut off. And indeed, at five different points there were nodes of rock. Four of the nodes were at the points of the shape, with the fifth one being dead center between two other bottom-most nodes. It also exhibited geometric perfection, and Chuck mused that he couldn't make the shape any more perfect with a straight edge. Several soldiers lit flares so it could be seen without directly shining their flashlights on it.

Sergeant Albert Smith whistled. "So this is the gate that has caused so much hardship and pain for the last twenty years."

"I wonder if Justin Gatewood is in there," said Isaac, who had lit some flares to illuminate the area. He approached the portal closely and was looking at it.

"Don't get too close, or you might fall in and find out," said Chuck.

"Hmm," said Isaac. "I do wonder if the portal goes both ways, but I'm not THAT curious."

"Alright," said Sergeant Smith. "We've seen the portal. It's time to get back to the entrance and get a second team down here with engineers to figure out how to close it."

"Yes si..." said Isaac, before being drowned out by a quick, loud hiss, like a fire having gasoline poured on it. Out of the portal came a Demon. He grappled with Isaac, and though the Demon was much larger and stronger than Isaac, the small soldier tried his best to push the Demon off, and both off them tumbled back through the Gate to Hell, with Isaac never to be seen from again.

Next, a mixed force of Demons and Imps burst out from the glowing blue Gate to Hell, and soldiers raised their guns and began firing. Chuck Horner was much farther from the gate than Isaac was, and raised his M27 and began firing in short bursts. Four Imps went down in sequence, but when Chuck aimed at the fifth Imp and pulled his trigger, Chuck was horrified to find that he had used up his magazine. He pressed the ejector on his M27 and the empty magazine clattered to the ground. He got a new magazine from his vest and was about to insert it in his gun when the Imp closed with him, and with a swipe, hit the magazine, which went flying and hit the wall. Chuck looked face to face at the Imp, which was only a little shorter than he was, and as usual, looked like the Halloween costume version of the Devil. He back-pedaled and fumbled to get a fresh magazine out of his vest, but the Imp slashed at him with his long claws. One of the claws swiped at the nylon strap to the M27, slicing through it, and then the Imp grabbed Chuck's gun with both hands, yanking it away quickly, and the gun went clattering. The rest of the soldiers were busy with their own battles, some of which were failing battles as larger Demons absorbed enough small arms fire to get close to soldiers and kill them, but for the time being, without his gun's flashlight he could only see the Imp now by the light of the flares, the muzzle flashes, and the occasional flashlight beam that happened to play on the Imp. Chuck wasn't sure what to do, but took the opportunity as the Imp was flinging way his gun to take out his knife. He brandished it at the Imp, and had an impromptu knife fight. He slashed at the Imp, slashing the Imp's arm, but it was completely ineffective, and like slashing an armadillo's back with a knife. The Imp slashed back with its claws, and Chuck jumped back, and was only slashed on his chest. The new armor absorbed the slash, and Chuck wasn't hurt. He tried the same against the Imp's chest, missing the first time, and slashed a second time, which was also completely ineffective. He thought briefly about taking out his entrenching tool, but realized that would be completely ineffective against a slash-proof creature. So, he tried stabbing, and stabbed the pointed tip of the knife at the Imp. The Imp grabbed hold of Chuck's arm when he did, and holding it with both hands, bit into the bracer part of Chuck's right arm, which again was thankfully ineffective due to the new armor. However, the creature gnawed at it, and then spit out a bit of the new fabric, and was about to bite again into Chuck's arm when Chuck released the knife, slapped the Imp's pointy ear with his free hand, and then balled up his left hand into a fist and punched the Imp as hard as he could in its face, hurting his knuckles slightly. It was like punching a rough latex mask, and the Imp's thick skin absorbed the blow and the second blow that came after it, but it was enough to get the Imp to drop Chuck's arm. Chuck shoved the Imp back, and with just a second of time to look around, he spotted his M27 to his right and the magazine close to it. The Imp used the opportunity to slash again, and Chuck brought up his right arm to defend against it. The armor again helped, and the slash bit gashes in his arm's armor rather than in his skin, but he also knew that another slash on his right arm would definitely draw blood, and he needed to end this fight quickly before he was maimed or ganged up on by more of the Imps and Demons coming out of the portal. So, he grabbed the Imp by the shoulder, and feel onto his back. Chuck and the Imp went tumbling, and next Chuck did an adult version of the children's game "airplane", and on his back, he laid both of his feet into the Imp's belly and propelled him with all he force he could muster over his head and behind him. The Imp's lesser mass assisted with the task, and it went sailing over Chuck's head and falling far away from him, giving him a few precious seconds. Chuck scrambled as fast as he could to his gun, grabbed the magazine and jammed it in. However, the Imp had recovered and ran and jumped on the crouching Chuck, biting at his thick helmet and spitting out pieces of its fabric covering while trying to claw at Chuck's exposed neck. It was only through luck that the demon didn't happen to successfully slash Chuck's neck, and Chuck stood up, with the Imp still on his back, spun around so his back was to the wall, and as hard as he could he slammed his back into the wall, hoping to crush the Imp between himself and the wall. It wasn't effective at first, so he jerked his head back so his helmet would smash the Imp's head into the wall, then still holding his M27, jerked his elbow backwards, and elbowing the Imp right in the stomach. But it still hadn't let go, and now Chuck could feel a small pain in his neck and realized his helmet was no longer securely strapped to his head, as one of the Imp's claws had sliced the nylon and some of his skin with it. He dropped the gun, took a step forward, reached behind him, crouched, and pulled the Imp up and over his head. A second time the Imp went flying, this time clutching Chuck's helmet and sending Chuck's protective glasses flying away as well. However, that gave Chuck the precious seconds he need. He picked up his gun again, which was loaded and ready, but just needed to be charged. The Imp turned around and was about to charge back at Chuck, ready to slash at his exposed head, when Chuck quickly pulled the charging handle, quickly pointed the gun in the general direction of the Imp, and fired point black at the Imp on full automatic. Not content to simply shoot a few times and let the Imp bleed out, and not caring in the heat of the moment that the over-penetrating bullets could hurt someone behind what he was shooting, Chuck emptied the entire magazine into the chest of the Imp. 30 rounds of 7.62x51 mm armor piercing bullets with tungsten carbide tips tore clean through the Imp, perforating it, and Chuck's gun followed it as it fell down.

His gun went silent, and the Imp, still clutching Chuck's helmet, created a small pool of reddish black blood on the ground. Chuck pried the helmet from the Imp's dead hands, put it back on loosely and didn't bother looking for the protective glasses or knife somewhere on the ground. Instead, he reloaded his gun as fast as possible and looked around. He realized that further back was a second line of infantry, which were shouting at Chuck and the few people remaining close to the Gate to Hell to get back to them, while firing in three round bursts to minimize the chances of friendly fire. Chuck sprinted back to them, keeping low as possible and with one hand on his helmet which was no longer as secure, and joined the fire team working to hold back the demons. As soon as everyone close to the Gate to Hell was either dead or retreated to the second line, half of the second line pulled back further to cover the retreat of the first half. Leapfrogging as they were, they made their way back to the mine entrance. It would have only taken around three minutes at a sprint to run from the Gate to Hell to the entrance, but leapfrogging like they were delayed the retreat. The pace of Demons and Imps coming at them was increasing, but a little natural light reaching back into the mine, and they could reach the entrance in two more leaps. It looked like the rest of the battalion's only choices were to stay where they were until the pace of demons coming at them increased to overwhelm them, or make the jump anyway knowing full well that some wouldn't make it back. They made the next leap, and indeed a few of the soldiers closer to the demons closed with them and were killed, but most got away to the second to last position to leap back to the mine entrance. When it was Chuck's turn to finally make the sprint to the mine entrance, he started running like something might be coming to follow him, glad that he didn't injure his legs in the fight with the Imp. A Demon gave chase, and he could see Kade in front of him, running as fast as he could for the entrance. A Demon close behind successfully slashed at a soldier behind Chuck, and Chuck knew he'd be slashed himself in a second if he stood between the Demon and the soldiers at the entrance, so he crouched down as low as he could while still running. Soldiers at the entrance took the chance of friendly fire, as he knew they would, and shot over his head at the large Demon pursuing him, striking the Demon down in a hail of fire that only missed his head by a few centimeters. Relieved, he finally got to the mine entrance, where he was greeted by masses of soldiers ready to shoot at anything humanoid but not human coming from the entrance.

"Keep running!" he heard someone say, and was momentarily confused but did as he was told. He realized that the entrance of the mine wasn't the best place to make a stand against creatures that could only attack at close range, and that people were retreating from the mine entrance as fast as possible. A few hundred meters in a semicircle, the huge IBIS walkers loomed, and as soon as humans stopped coming from the entrance, they started firing their 12.7×99mm rounds at demons coming from the entrance, while minigunners also began spraying the entrance. Once soldiers were far enough from the entrance, he heard a mighty boom behind him and was showered with bits of dirt and rock. He kept running, and only when it was over 300 meters from the entrance and extremely winded did he slow his pace and turn back. IBIS walkers had engaged with their main cannons and were shelling demons right as they left the entrance, and foot soldiers at a safe distance were mopping up demons not killed by the shells and minigunners. Chuck jogged to join them and added his gun to the volume of fire. As expected, shortly afterwards a Greater Demon emerged from the entrance. But with the combined force of every soldier and IBIS walker sighted in on it, the Greater Demon died faster than any Greater Demon had ever been killed before, and it certainly set the record for the shortest and least bloody encounter the United States Army had with a Greater Demon. In due time, the pace of demons emerging from the entrance slacked and stopped, and quiet settled over Borborema. Immediately after, he saw a second battalion of soldiers, this time including some engineers with backpacks, clamber over the field of corpses and rush back into the entrance. Chuck waited, and while he waited found Kade, who informed him that Sergeant Albert Smith had been killed. Kade and Chuck waited, with the cut on Chuck's neck ceasing to bleed and scabbing over, and about an hour after the battalion went in, they came out. An engineer gave everyone a thumbs up, and a cheer went through the crowd, though Chuck wasn't sure precisely what the thumbs up meant at the time, and only later that afternoon got a firsthand account from one of the engineers of what had happened.

The engineers had gone back in with the second battalion, and before they did anything to destroy the Gate to Hell, took every kind of reading they could, with pages of detailed notes. As soon as they had every test they could run at such short notice, and under constant guard of nervous soldiers, they drilled into the rock of the lower left node, and planted C4 explosives. They detonated the explosives, shattering the node, and the portal stopped glowing. The rock face turned to just rock, and among the rock fragments of the shattered node was one rock a lot harder than the surrounding rocks. It was a completely regular lump of crystal in a shape the engineer described as a "small triambic icosahedron" that glowed brightly with the same blue light of the portal. It was found to not be radioactive, and the engineer willingly showed Chuck the crystal, glowing in a box he had used to carry it out in, and with bits of normal rock still stuck to it. The engineer said that he was sure the rocks would be kept and studied, and mused that they would probably eventually go back to the Siberian laboratories near Dmitry Laptev Strait. He wasn't certain what the crystals were made of, but was certain that without the rocks, the Gate to Hell would be completely useless.

Chuck asked the engineer if he could figure out why those first five Greater Demons had chosen Borborema to make the Gate to Hell, and wondered if there was any global or magnetic significance to the place. The engineer responded that he saw no evidence of that, and mused that the five crystals activated as such would probably form a Gate to Hell anywhere, and it wouldn't really matter whether it was on the earth's surface or the earth's center, or whether it was in Cairo or Borborema. The only reasons the engineer could see for the choice were tactical. By choosing somewhere already mined out, it created a place already protected to form the gate. Also, he noted that the rock face that had eventually been selected to form the gate had to be excavated before the stones were placed so that Diablo could eventually come to the world, but that the rest of the tunnels had to be slowly and laboriously excavated, which would explain why it took a few years between when the first demons came from Borborema and when Diablo first arrived on the scene.

Chuck finished talking with the engineer and looked out at the setting sun. It was done. The gate to hell was firmly shut, and while masses of demons still roamed the earth, every demon killed from this day forth was one that could never be replaced. He sniffed the air. It smelled like dead bodies and gun propellant but he reminded himself that now that was the last time death would perfume the air of this place.

He mused on unanswered questions. What was powering those Prophets that shattered American hopes and dreams at Khantayskoye Lake? What reason did Justin Gatewood have for using a weapon greatly more powerful than necessary and blowing up a large section of central India? Why did John Redmond summon Pharol the Black into this world, and how? And how had demons first been summoned to this world in the first place?

Chuck signed to himself. This journey had begun in mystery, and perhaps it would end that way.


End file.
